


forward

by derekmaliknurse



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Derek "Nursey" Nurse is Unchill, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Literary References & Allusions, M/M, Minor Adam "Holster" Birkholtz/Justin "Ransom" Oluransi, Minor Chris "Chowder" Chow/Caitlin Farmer, Minor Eric "Bitty" Bittle/Jack Zimmermann, Minor Larissa "Lardo" Duan/Shitty Knight, Muslim Derek "Nursey" Nurse, Non-Linear Narrative, Pining, Post-Canon, Road Trips, Rom-Com Tropes, Roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:20:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 40,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23915215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/derekmaliknurse/pseuds/derekmaliknurse
Summary: Derek Nurse may have been falling in love with a certain William J. Poindexter on and off for the past three years. He doesn't see how competing with Ransom and Holster for the title of Best D-Men the summer before senior year is going to help, but for some reason, that's exactly what he finds himself doing.(It’s not like it’s athing, NurseyandDex, DexandNursey. It’s just that it’s not like it’snota thing either.)
Relationships: Derek "Nursey" Nurse/William "Dex" Poindexter
Comments: 38
Kudos: 213





	forward

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. this is what comes of quarantine and ramadan at the same time i guess  
> 2\. check please may be over (thank u ngozi for the most emotionally fulfilling and happy ending ever) but i, unfortunately, am not over nursey and dex  
> 3\. there were two wolves inside of me when i decided to write this. one wanted to write from nursey’s perspective because he is my favourite (u may have noticed from my username) and the other wanted to write from dex’s perspective because i too enjoy being angry and in love with derek nurse. in the end i wrote from nursey’s pov because i have projected my life on to him.  
> 4\. the quotes at the start of this are meant to represent nursey and dex’s relationship throughout the fic and hopefully u will remember them at the end.  
> 5\. there is a playlist for this fic [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1LmbCQUg1uWExQzgsbKKFJ). the songs are all in chronological order, so the first three songs correspond with the first scene, and so on. but u could really listen to it however u wanted to.  
> 6\. i’m very much hoping that all the dates are correct?? it’s really hard to find specific dates for the major events in check please so if i messed up please tell me lol. ramadan and eid 2017 did actually take place end of may to end of june, so that part of the timeline at least is correct. ok, now i’ll shut up.

I hate you so much it makes me sick; it even makes me rhyme. I hate it, I hate the way you're always right. I hate it when you lie. I hate when you make me laugh, even worse when you make me cry. I hate it that you're not around, and the fact that you didn't call. But mostly I hate the way I don’t hate you. Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.

– kat stratford, 10 things i hate about you (1999)

I’ve been nonsensical! He’s been a fool about so many things [...] but then, so have I. You see, he and I are so similar. We’re both so stubborn.

– elizabeth bennet, pride and prejudice (2005)

_forward_

_best foot first just in case_

_when we made our way till now_

_it’s time to listen, time to fight_

_forward_

– forward, beyoncé ft. james blake

“We are roommates, who have made out a couple of times, and are attracted to each other, and [are] really good friends and sometimes genuinely kind of hate each other.”

– nick miller, new girl (2011-2018)

_Perhaps, after all, romance [..] crept to one’s side like an old friend through quiet ways; perhaps it revealed itself in seeming prose, until some sudden shaft of illumination flung athwart its pages betrayed the rhythm and the music, perhaps . . . perhaps . . . love unfolded naturally out of a beautiful friendship, as a golden-hearted rose slipping from its green sheath._

– anne of avonlea, l.m. montgomery

BENEDICK

A miracle! Here’s our own hands against our hearts. Come,

I will have thee, but, by this light, I take thee for pity.

BEATRICE

I would not deny you, but, by this good day, I yield upon

great persuasion, and partly to save your life, for I was told

you were in a consumption.

BENEDICK

Peace! I will stop your mouth.

_[They kiss]_

– much ado about nothing, act v scene iv

****OCTOBER 2016** **

“You are a fucking idiot,” Derek says, pulling Dex up the stairs and also basically pulling Dex upright. He briefly thinks about the disastrous consequences that would arise if he tripped now, with a cast on his arm and a hockey player the same height as him collapsed on his shoulder. (With _Dex_ collapsed on his shoulder.) Especially since said hockey player is the one who usually stops Derek from tripping on the stairs. In his current state, Dex is probably more likely to trip than Derek is, which is something he never thought he’d think to himself.

“Don’t tell Bitty,” Dex mumbles into his sweater.

“Oh, chyeah, of course,” says Derek sarcastically, gripping on to the railing with his free hand, the one with the cast, tightly and using the other to haul Dex up. “I won’t tell Bitty that you got yourself beaten up by two lax bros and look like you’re the victor of the 75th Annual Hunger Games. What the hell, dude?”

They reach the landing. Dex pulls himself free, wobbles a bit, and says very indignantly, “I did not get myself _beaten up_. You should see the other guy. Guys.”

“I did,” Derek says and very much does not mention that Dex had been doing, actually, pretty good before Derek arrived, or how the lax bros limped away from the Haus, or exactly how mortifyingly attractive Derek found the whole situation. “I’ll give that much to you, you held them off. Two on one, though, was a stupid fucking idea.”

He’s kind of disappointed, and Jesus, isn’t that stupid. It’s just that Dex hasn’t gotten into a fight like this since freshman year, and during freshman year Derek wouldn’t even have been surprised that Dex was getting into fights. He would have expected it. Now – well, it’s not freshman year anymore. At the same time, though, it’s not like he isn’t used to being disappointed by Dex. Case in point, the door of the bedroom he’s managed to drag them both in front of. _His_ bedroom, now, not his and Dex’s.

“Okay,” Derek says, and opens the door. He’s very conscious that Dex hasn’t been in this room since he moved out – stormed out, really – and that it’s not like Derek’s turned it into a fancy basement bungalow like Chowder says Dex has. It’s mostly the same. Even the bunk bed, because Derek hasn’t ordered a new bed from Ikea yet, and if he’s being honest he has no idea how to put together a bed anyway.

Maybe he shouldn’t have brought Dex to this room.

Derek deposits Dex on the bottom bunk, and walks into the bathroom to find the first-aid kit that he remembers Dex stashing into the cabinet on the right-hand side the first day they moved everything in together. _You get into too many disasters not to have a personal first-aid kit, Nurse_ , he’d said, rolling his eyes when Derek had argued that they didn’t need one in the bathroom, Jesus, Poindexter, there was enough downstairs.

Well, Derek had gotten into a disaster, but Dex hasn’t exactly stuck around for it. The first-aid kit hadn’t been much use either. Something in his chest hurts, and the floor is wet because he forgot to wipe up the counter when he washed his face last night.

Whatever. He’s fine.

When he comes out of the bathroom, Dex has straightened up a bit and looks conscious enough to be embarrassed. He’s blushing and he’s got blood on his mouth, bruised knuckles and a vicious cut by his cheekbone. Derek’s fingers itch for a pen or a keyboard, something he could use to write down the way Dex looks in the light streaming in from the window, illuminating his freckles and leaving his bright hair with a gold halo around it.

The moment Dex sees Derek, he turns distraught and says, “Nursey, your _arm_.”

Derek waves him off. “It’s almost healed.”

“You shouldn’t have helped me up – ” Dex begins.

“Forget it,” Derek says sharply, “I can take care of myself.” _I don’t need your help_ , Derek thinks, a little spitefully, _and you made it clear you didn’t want to help._ At least he doesn’t say it. Progress.

Before Dex can continue to argue, he says, “Anyways, dude, you are so lucky Bitty has a class,” determined not to make this as awkward as it is. He thinks about how he knows that Dex doesn’t have a class right now, and how Dex used to wait for his Societal Impacts on Gender Norms in Literature class to be over so they could head over to Annie’s. That, Derek thinks darkly, was before the Dib Flip and everything that followed. The past month, they’ve been studiously avoiding each other. Derek’s been giving Dex the cold shoulder, and Dex has been alternately angry and apologetic. It’s not like they bring any of it on the ice, or at practice, not like they have since freshman year. It’s not like they even can, because the coaches won’t let Derek onto the ice till spring. He hasn’t been to watch their practices yet. It stings too much, and he doesn’t want to see how Dex is doing with Derek’s replacement.

(Terribly, Chowder tells him, and Derek pretends not to be satisfied.)

But it’s fine. Chowder’s the only one who’s upset that they can’t be in the same room anymore.

Shit, this is awkward.

“Yeah,” Dex mutters, “well. Look, Nursey, I can handle this – I mean, the rest, by myself – thank you for – you know, um.”

Derek raises an eyebrow, trying to tamp down his nerves. “You do know how tempting it is to chirp you for that, right?”

“Oh, shut up,” Dex says half-heartedly. “You’re the one who faints at the sight of blood.”

“That was _one time_ ,” Derek says, even though he does feel a bit queasy. He crosses the space between them anyway, and sits down on the bed next to Dex. He opens the first-aid kit and searches until he finds the antiseptic wipes, ripping open a packet.

“I’ll take that,” Dex tells him, pointedly.

“Dex,” says Derek. “Seriously. Just let me do this. I had to carry you all the way up the stairs anyway.”

Dex looks, if possible, even more embarrassed, turning his head away from Derek. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Derek says. “I’m your partner, it’s my job.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. They haven’t exactly been partners lately, and both of them know it.

Derek pushes past the moment. He reaches out with one hand to grab Dex’s jaw so that he’s facing Derek again. _Chill,_ he thinks against the rapid-fire beating of his heart and the panic rising in his chest. Not like they haven’t been this close before anyway. He’s already seen all of Dex’s freckles in startling sunlight. He’s already noticed the gross and lovely things you notice about a person’s face when they’re a breath apart from you.

Nothing new.

Dex swallows. Derek pretends not to notice and dabs gently at his cuts instead. Dex winces at the sting, but he doesn’t move away.

“What happened, anyway?”

“Nothing,” Dex says, scowling.

Derek gives him a look. “Dude, I didn’t see everything, but I’m pretty sure it was you who threw the first punch.”

“They were being dicks,” Dex says. “ _Ow_. Nursey.”

His voice is petulant, and Derek nearly laughs. “You brought this on yourself, you know. And lax bros are _always_ dicks.”

“Fffffuck the lax bros,” Dex says absently.

Derek huffs out a laugh. “No, but really.” He frowns. He’s not sure why he’s pushing, especially considering how on edge their relationship currently is, but. “Why did you do it?”

“They were saying dumb shit,” Dex says flatly. “It’s not important.”

“Dex.”

“ _Nursey_.”

A brief silence passes, and then Dex sighs loudly. A muscle clenches in his jaw. He says, “You don’t want to know.”

There’s this look on his face that Derek can’t quite figure out. It’s not like Dex hasn’t fought over jibes directed towards himself, Chowder, Bitty, Jack, or the hockey team numerous times. On the ice and off of it. Derek doesn’t know what’s so different about this time.

“You don’t want to know,” Dex says again, carefully. “Just drop it.”

Something in his voice makes Derek look up. “It was about me,” he says, not a question.

Dex avoids his gaze, which is as good as a confirmation, really, and Derek is. Not sure how to feel about this. It feels like his chest has grown two sizes too small.

“Dex,” he says again, but his voice comes out sounding hoarse. He clears his throat, tries again. “I’ve heard worse, man.”

“I hope not,” Dex says, something ferocious in his voice.

“I don’t need you fighting my battles for me.”

“You won’t fight them yourself,” says Dex. “You _can’t_. They’ll come down on you worse than they will on me. So don’t tell me not to do it for you, Nursey. I _can’t_ , what they _said_ – I’m not about to regret it – ”

Derek feels a little light-headed. He’s heard his share of insults thrown his way, and it’s not like it ever gets easy, but he can’t exactly afford to fight over it. He didn’t expect Dex to want to defend him that staunchly; not after everything, anyway. He didn’t expect to hear Dex sound so agonized.

He’d been disappointed, and now something else.

Derek picks up the wipe again but Dex’s chin has taken on a stubborn tilt. “It doesn’t matter. Seriously. It’s not worth it.”

“You’re my partner too,” Dex says hotly and he grabs Derek’s wrist gently before Derek can try and clean his cuts. “I got your back, dude.”

Derek falters and his mouth goes dry; Dex is flushed and his thumb traces a circle around the inside of Derek’s wrist. The words hang between them. He busies himself trying to find a bandaid in the first-aid kit, and jostles the bed. The first-aid kit falls onto the floor with a loud clatter.

Before Derek can move, Dex has slipped off the bed and knelt down to the floor to grab it. He’s still kneeling when he offers it back to Derek, the sun glinting off his hair. Dex has fire for hair, Derek thinks, and fire for a heart.

“Your hands,” he says, looking at the bloody mess of Dex’s knuckles as he takes the first-aid kit from Dex with some guilt. “I forgot.”

“Nursey,” Dex says, exasperated, but he doesn’t start arguing when Derek takes hold of both his hands and opens another antiseptic packet.

There is a strange juxtaposition between Derek’s slim brown hands, rings on his thin fingers and chipped nail polish on his fingernails, against Dex’s, pale and broad and larger and capable. He’s always liked looking at Dex’s hands: Dex’s hands as they help Bitty with pie, as they fix up the Haus, as they grab hold of Derek’s shoulder to keep him from falling down. The things they are able to do. The things he will never see them do.

 _Now this,_ he hears Lardo say in his head, resigned, _really is pathetic, Nursey._ Like they’re smoking weed on the floor of her bedroom again, his bedroom now, and they’re telling each other things the other one will absolutely judge them for.

“I’m sorry,” says Dex suddenly. Derek wonders if he should mention that Dex is still kneeling down on the floor. Dex is showing absolutely no sign of wanting to get up, which isn’t doing much for Derek’s self-control right now.

“Chill, I told you, don’t – ”

“Not that.” Dex’s voice is small. “I shouldn’t have gotten into a fight with those guys assuming that you would have approved of it. I knew you wouldn’t have, I just – ”

“Ah,” Derek says at length and wonders where the fuck to begin with that. He begins to wrap thin cloths of bandages around Dex’s hands, carefully, and conscious of Dex hissing from the pain. “Look, the fight – I hear that shit, and I have to deal with it. I mean it when I say it’s not worth it for you or anyone to get in trouble or to get hurt over two assholes. It _doesn’t_ matter, okay? I can’t afford to get upset over that kind of stuff.”

“Okay,” says Dex. His chin lifts up into that stubborn tilt again, though, and there’s something smug about the curl of his mouth when he goes on, “But I was winning, you know.”

“Okay,” Derek echoes, not bothering to tamp down on his smile. “I know you know how to fight, Poindexter.”

Dex shrugs – “Don’t _move_ ,” Derek says disapprovingly – and says, “You grow up with an older brother and a shitload of older cousins, you kind of have to know how.”

Derek nods sagely. “One of those skills you learn to promote toxic and fragile masculinity?” He winces internally, what a stupid thing to _say,_ now they’re going to start fighting.

But Dex just grins. “Not the only skill I learned from home.”

Derek’s fingers turn motionless for a moment, and he turns to grab a bandaid to push past the momentary stutter. He wonders if this counts as flirting or chirping. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Dex says, watching Derek struggle to open the bandaid. “One was learning how to open bandaids properly so that my younger siblings didn’t have to go to Mom for every scrape and bruise, Jesus, Nurse, give me that.”

“I will not accept defeat to this cowardly bandaid,” Derek says.

A pause.

Derek gives him the bandaid. Dex opens it in one easy motion despite his bandages, and hands it back to Derek.

“I always get it in the end,” Derek says defensively, which he _does._ He places the bandaid over the cut on Dex’s cheekbone. There’s a mole there that Derek sadly watches disappear beneath it. Without thinking, his hands go, next, to press cool fingers to Dex’s swollen and bruised mouth. He says absently, “You need ice,” and then they both go utterly still and he realizes what he just _did_ and then. He faints.

Internally. Unfortunately he is still conscious, in real life, to see the red spread across Dex’s face.

He drops his hand too late.

“It’s fine,” Dex says awkwardly. “It doesn’t hurt.”

Derek sends him a disbelieving and incredulous look.

Dex rolls his eyes. “I’d know if it was serious, okay, Nurse?”

Derek arches an eyebrow and asks, “That something else you learned from home?”

“From hockey,” Dex says. “Something else I learned from home was memorizing the entire 10 Things I Hate About You poem.”

Derek pauses, absolutely delighted. “No,” he says. “Really?”

“Really. My sisters watched it day and night.”

It occurs to Derek that this is more personal information Dex has voluntarily told him since, well, _ever,_ and he’s not sure what to make of it. “I don’t believe you,” he says. “Even I don’t have it memorized, and my ammi loves that movie.” Derek totally loves it too, in an ironic way, but the amount of chirping he would get for saying that out loud outweighs any desire to confess it to Dex.

It’s Dex’s turn to raise his eyebrows. “That a challenge, bro?”

“You decide,” Derek says, leaning back on his elbows.

“ ‘I hate the way you talk to me and the way you cut your hair’, ” Dex says, voice slow and easy, and Derek’s mouth goes firmly shut, absolutely gobsmacked. “ ‘I hate the way you drive my car. I hate it when you stare. I hate your big dumb combat boots and the way you read my mind’.” Dex’s tone has been kind of smug, almost like he’s laughing at Derek, and he hasn’t stuttered at all. But now his voice catches, his eyes locking on to Derek’s. He’s softer when he says, “ ‘I hate you so much it makes me sick; it even makes me rhyme. I hate it, I hate the way you're always right. I hate it when you lie. I hate when you make me laugh, even worse when you make me cry. I hate it that you're not around, and the fact that you didn't call’.” Dex’s voice comes to a stuttering stop.

“ ‘But mostly I hate the way I don't hate you’,” Derek says quietly. “ ‘Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all’.”

Dex holds his gaze. “I thought you didn’t have it memorized.”

“Everyone knows that part,” Derek says. “And which one of us is the poet, anyway?”

The joke doesn’t land, but the moment stretches on forever. The room is stifled and silent, and Derek thinks about reaching out to touch Dex’s mouth again, and Dex lets out a long breath like he’s been waiting for something. For this.

 _All the world drops dead,_ Derek thinks. _I think I made you up inside my head._

Someone laughs outside the door and there’s a crash. Dex flinches back like Derek’s unexpectedly rubbed the wipe into a cut on his face, and scrambles up to stand abruptly.

The moment passes. The moment is gone. The moment is lost.

 _Stupid_ , Derek thinks.

“I’ll get the ice,” Dex says, like that’s not just an excuse to leave. He’s halfway to the door when he turns back, looks at Derek. “Nursey. Thank you.”

Derek says airily, “No problem.”

It’s the wrong thing to say, the wrong tone to take on. He can see it by the way Dex’s expression shutters.

But Dex is set on surprising him today, he guesses. Before he opens the door, Dex looks back at him again and says again, “Nursey.”

Derek swallows. “Yeah?”

Dex squares his shoulders like he’s steeling himself to get ready before a game. His next words are measured and delicate. “Be careful with your arm. I miss skating with you.”

The door closes.

────────────

It’s not like it’s a _thing,_ NurseyandDex, DexandNursey, except it kind of is. Or at least it is just when Bitty’s yelling at them to stop screaming because the pie’s almost ready, or when Chowder’s complaining that they’re not even in the Haus, why do they have to fine him for calling Farmer sweetheart, or when they chirp the waffles at practice.

It’s not like it’s a thing the way Chowder and Farmer are a thing, or the way Ollie and Wicks (apparently) are, or even Ransom and Holster who are a single entity and soulmates on a level that everyone else could only hope to try and achieve. Because Derek’s not that much of an idiot, and because Dex would never, not in a million years.

It’s just that it’s not like it’s _not_ a thing either.

────────────

**MAY 2017 (NOW)**

Derek is trying not to have a panic attack when Dex shoves a green hat in his hands.

 _Derek’s_ green hat.

“Oh,” Derek says, blinking in surprise. “What – ”

Dex is standing in front of him, wearing a blush and a snapback backwards on his head. It’s a good look for him. So is the light in his eyes that’s been there since he was voted captain. Not that Derek’s noticing, because he’s not going to make everything weird.

“I forgot to give that back,” Dex says, “um, to you. So I thought I should do it before we leave. Are you okay?”

It takes Derek a minute to process the question. Outside the front of the Haus, the sun is bright, in his eyes, and he squints to try and see Dex more clearly. To see the expression on his face. Derek’s not sure, suddenly, how long he’s been standing out here trying to calm down. He remembers hugging Chowder goodbye after he’d helped drag Derek’s suitcases out here, and Bitty handing him a bag of baked goods while trying not to cry before leaving with Jack. He remembers saying goodbye to everyone except for Dex, actually. Then he’d come out here to wait for his parents, whichever one of them was going to come pick him up, and that was when the panic started to settle in. The knowledge that Bitty was leaving, _Bitty_ , the one solid Derek had learned to depend upon at Samwell, and that he had only one more year with everything. What the fuck was he going to do after, what if Dex and Chowder and everyone all forgot him –

“Nursey?” Dex says. He has a suitcase on the ground next to him, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, and a bag that looks like the one Bitty gave Derek in his hand. His expression is steady, sure. He puts his hand on Derek’s arm.

Derek breathes.

Next year Dex will be captain, and Chowder will look after them both, and it will not be the same but that will be okay.

“Yeah,” Derek says, “sorry. I forgot you had this.” He waves the hat around. He doesn’t even remember when Dex took it.

Dex looks embarrassed, taking his hand off. “Yeah, me too.”

This is clearly untrue because even though Derek doesn’t remember _when_ Dex took the hat, he remembers seeing Dex wear it recently. He doesn’t say anything, just shifts his position. Leaving now suddenly feels impossible, with Dex right in front of him. Two months without hockey, without Chowder’s laughter ringing in his ears, without Ford saying good morning every day, without Dex’s shoulder against his – it suddenly seems inconceivable.

“I, um,” Dex says. “I’ll see you next year, I guess.”

“At Bitty and Jack’s engagement party over the summer,” Derek reminds him. “Everyone’s going to sleep over. Last hurrahs and all.”

“I don’t know if I’ll – if I can go.”

“ _What?_ ” That hadn’t sounded very chill. “Dude, you have to come.”

Dex shrugs. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to get the car.”

“That’s it?” Derek tries not to breathe in relief. “I’ll come pick you up.”

“I don’t need you to – ”

“It’s not about that,” Derek says. “You should be there. For Bitty and Jack. They’d want you there.”

 _I want you there_ , he thinks.

“ _Nursey_ ,” Dex says, firmly. “Driving from New York to Maine is like, an eight-hour trip, plus three hours to Providence. You’re not doing that.”

“Pshh,” Derek says, waving it off, even though that does sound like a lot. He wonders whether Dex has searched up how far apart they live before.

Dex shakes his head. “No way, dude.”

 _We’ll get a flight_ , Derek almost says, but that’s sure to start an argument and it’s a stupid thing to say anyway.

“Plus, you’ve got.” Dex coughs, like he’s not sure how to say this. “Your fasting thing? It starts next week, doesn’t it?”

It takes Derek a moment to realize that Dex means Ramadan, and then another moment to take in the fact that Dex had actually remembered Derek’s off-hand comment about it. It’s weird, because he and his moms aren’t actually that religious, but Ramadan is always something Derek’s taken part of unless it’s hockey season.

He makes a face. “Eeesh, you make a good point, Poindexter.”

“Eeesh?” Dex echoes, smiling. “I swear to God, Nurse, it’s like you’re not even a person.”

“Shut up,” is Derek the English major’s witty comeback. “I don’t fast every day, you know.” Sometimes he sleeps in, and if he doesn’t wake up before dawn, he can’t take his meds. Sometimes he has a bad day, and his moms won’t let him.

“It’s _fine_.”

“Dude, it’s a moral obligation for me to drive twelve hours to help out my fellow d-man. Do you know what Holster and Ransom would do to us if they saw us hesitating right now?”

It’s Dex’s turn to make a face.

“See,” Derek says triumphantly.

“If I can’t come, I’ll text you,” Dex concedes, “and then _maybe_ – ”

“You’ll consider my proposal?” Derek asks, batting his eyelashes.

Dex looks away gruffly, and says, “Sure.” It’s like he didn’t expect Derek to care about this news at all. He adds, quieter, “I’ll consider it.”

Derek can’t quite contain his grin, and Dex snorts. He looks annoyed and fond at the same time, brown eyes gold in the light. For a moment they just smile at each other, in the heat and the distant chattering of students wishing each other farewell for the summer.

Derek extends his free hand out for a fist bump. Dex looks at his hand, and then, to Derek’s immense shock, pulls them both in for a hug.

He’s stock-still, frozen, as Dex breathes into his shoulder. Dex is warm, and smells nice, and his arm is around Derek’s neck. Derek slowly puts his arms around him, still clutching the hat Dex had given him.

He breathes in. He breathes out.

He doesn’t think they’ve ever hugged, not counting cellys and roughhousing, like this.

“Thanks again, Nursey,” Dex says, voice muffled by Derek’s shirt. “For voting me captain.”

“Of course,” says Derek, and to his horror it does not come out sounding casual or easy, but instead like he really means it and, awfully, like he’s about to cry. Like there is no question that he would lead Dex wherever he needed to go.

Dex lets go of him, and clears his throat, running a hand through his hair. He is not looking at Derek’s face. He is looking at the ground instead.

“Will you miss me?” Derek asks, beaming at him.

“Not even a little bit,” grumbles Dex but he meets Derek’s eyes and almost smiles, so Derek knows he will.

“You hugged me,” Derek croons at him, “you will miss me! I can’t wait to tell C.”

Dex’s ears are fire-engine red.

“I’ll miss you,” Derek says, because it’s true and it’s easy to play off as a joke.

“Yeah,” Dex says, like he doesn’t really believe Derek. “See you, Nurse.”

“Wait,” Derek calls after him, turning over the green hat in his hands and biting his lip.

Dex turns around.

“Keep the hat,” says Derek, and smiles.

────────────

When Derek was little, his ammi read him his bedtime stories aloud when she could, and she always did the voices. She read him the Quran or her book of poetry or his fairytales. When she was too swamped with work, his nanny would whisper them to him in gentle Spanish, until he was snoring softly in his too-big bed. His mama always came home too late. His dad didn’t live with them, and he never visited at the same time Derek’s mama did, but Derek remembered sitting in his lap when he was younger and hearing him talk about his day while lulling Derek to sleep.

Sometimes Derek would wait up for his mama anyway, even when it was past his bedtime. Sometimes he couldn’t sleep at all. Sometimes there was a slow and awful nervousness in his stomach, and he’d toss and turn all night. He was _scared,_ sometimes, but he didn’t want to bother anyone by telling them about silly nightmares. He didn’t have a name for it then, anxiety and depression. So he’d wait til he heard the sound of his mama’s keys unlocking the front door, and then he’d creep downstairs slowly so that his ammi wouldn’t hear him, and run into her arms.

Laila Karim-Believau never told him to go back to sleep, or that she was too tired. She didn’t read him a bedtime story either. She would just say, “Give me a moment, baby, I’ll be right there.”

So he would run back to his bedroom and wait. She would come in after a couple of minutes, and settle in under the comforter with him. Her dark brown hands would brush through his curls, always smelling like strawberry hand-cream.

“Tell me something true,” Derek would say. And she would start talking, English and French and the Sindhi she’d learned for Derek’s ammi all blurring together, until Derek had fallen asleep and wouldn’t notice her leaving.

One night when he said, “Tell me something true, Mama,” she told him, “When I fell in love with your ammi, it wasn’t because of the good parts.”

“I don’t get it,” Derek complained, lifting his head up from her lap and scrunching up his nose.

And Laila smiled. “When you fall in love, if you fall in love, it will be because you have seen all of someone, and that includes the awful parts that nobody wants you to know. And you fall in love because of the awful parts, because you have seen the bad and seen the good and now you know if they outweigh each other, or if they are equal in worth. If someone is terrible, awful – ”

“Like Andrew Perkins?” Derek said, yawning. “He always makes a mean face at me at school.”

“Yes,” Laila said after a moment. “A bit like that. If there is no good in someone, then you can still love them, but it won’t be good for you, for them, or for anyone. If there is no bad in someone, you will spend all your life feeling guilty about any human desires you’ve ever had, trying to measure up to them. There must be an equal amount of both. So that when you see the bad, you know that the person you love keeps trying to be good.”

 _I don’t get it,_ Derek would have said again, but he’d already fallen asleep and Laila had already slipped out to her own bedroom, where her (not first, not second, but truest) love was waiting.

────────────

**MAY 2017 (NOW)**

Derek spends the first weeks of summer outside, in the city he has grown up in. He rides the subway to nowhere in particular and goes out with the people that he was friends with before Samwell. He goes shopping with his ammi and goes to yoga classes with his mama. He watches Netflix and reads his favorite books even though the covers are falling apart and tries to write, but everything he comes up with is about autumn or fire or feelings. He does all of the things that Dex would hate him for doing, and it all falls a bit flat. He’s not moping, whatever his parents say.

He might be moping a bit.

“What do you think of the flowers? Der, mijo?”

“Ummmm,” Derek says, blinking up from his phone. He lolls his head back from where he’s laying down on his dad’s couch, legs swung over the other end, and squints at the bouquet in Gabriel Nurse’s arms. “That depends. Is this a romantic thing or a friend thing, and if it’s a romantic thing, is it like, you want it to be obvious that this is a romantic thing, or you wanna keep it on the DL?”

There is a brief pause in which Derek assumes his father is trying to decipher what Derek’s just said.

“I’m not sure what DL means, but this is not a romantic thing,” he says, finally. “This is very much a thank-you-for-dinner thing.”

“That sounds kind of romantic, Dad.”

“I would tell you if it was a romantic thing,” Gabriel says, and sets down his bouquet of garden roses and lilies so he can come over to face Derek on the couch. Except he can’t really face Derek because Derek is lying down, so instead he bends to be at eye-level with Derek, and Derek looks at his face from upside down. He looks serious, and now Derek knows what’s coming.

“This is strictly a thank-you-for-inviting-me-to-dinner-to-welcome-me-to-my-new-job-as-friends-and-only-as-friends thing,” Gabriel informs him.

Derek winces. “Too much, Dad.” His phone buzzes, so he drops it face down on his chest and hopes his father hasn’t noticed the contact name.

“Okay, too much,” Gabriel concedes. “You just gotta know I’d tell you first thing if I wanted to date anyone.”

He hadn’t used to. And then Derek ran away and got diagnosed with anxiety and depression and it was like all of his parents banded together where before Derek’s father was never in the same room as his mama, where before his nanny came over his ammi took shifts off work, where before his mama worked too often to come to games she asked him constantly when the next one was. It’s better, it’s incredible, and he’s so lucky. It just doesn’t help with making him feel like less of a burden, something they have to put aside their own lives for.

“I know.”

“Alright,” Gabriel says, booping Derek on the nose before straightening. “Now who have you been talking to all this time? You’ve got that goofy smile on your face.”

“I don’t know what smile you’re talking about and I’m not texting anyone,” Derek lies.

His phone buzzes again, probably with another message from _sexy dexy_. The contact name is mostly a joke. (Mostly, as in, a joke only to Dex.) Derek changes it every month. He’s already decided it’s going to be _oh captain my captain_ when senior year begins. Once it was _carrots,_ for Anne of Green Gables, and in April it was _tyrannosaurus dex._ In March it was _handy dexy,_ for Handy Mandy. Before that it was just _william,_ to be ironic. Derek had to change that one after he’d searched up the name William on his phone.

 _Protector_ kind of fits Dex too well.

Derek’s parents had given him three names to be equal, even though they hadn’t all gotten along that well when he’d been born. His mama wanted to name him Derek, his ammi had chosen Malik to honour her family, and Nurse was for his father.

“It’s the same smile Amina gets,” Gabriel says, “when she’s talking to your mama.” He says it without any bitterness, which would have been astonishing to Derek a handful of years ago.

Derek fights the urge to check his phone. “It’s just a friend from school.”

He doesn’t know why he doesn’t just say it’s Dex. His moms and his dad have all met or seen Dex at one point, and he charmed them all effortlessly. Laila had watched one of their games in junior year and said he’d looked out for Derek on the ice. Amina met him at a Family Weekend and liked how polite he was. Gabriel introduced himself during a Facetime call before Dex had moved out, and Dex had reminded Derek to finish his essay, so Gabriel came out of it saying Dex was good for Derek. Though that was all before Derek had come home for break with a cast and a complicated attitude. Currently, Derek’s parents are probably feeling wary towards Dex, so.

“Just a friend who makes you look like that?” Gabriel says, and then, at Derek’s expression, “Alright, I’ll shut up. An old man can take a hint.”

“You’re not old, Dad,” Derek says, long-suffering. “And I think the flowers are pretty romantic if you’re not going for romantic.”

Gabriel shrugs, which means he probably has a crush on whoever this mysterious coworker is. Derek waits until he’s gone to check Dex’s text.

 **I can come to the engagement party** , his phone reads. **Thankfully I don’t have to suffer through your shitty driving.**

Derek’s phone slips out of his hand and hits the floor with an ominous smack. Derek curses and scrambles up from the couch to get it, but he can’t stop smiling even after he’s seen the cracks. It’s the kind of moment that he would have gotten chirped to hell from at Samwell.

So, alright, he’s been texting Dex. Snapchatting him daily with dramatic close-ups. (Dex never Snapchats back with a picture of his actual face, which is a pity.) Sending him memes. Sometimes Dex just sends him a text that says _good morning_ , way too early for Derek to be awake, and then when Derek does eventually wake up he’ll stare at it for a long time (but he doesn’t smile, or anything). And yeah, Derek responds back with _good night_ texts way too late for Dex to be awake or early because it’s Ramadan and his sleep schedule is destroyed, and will either get a response that tells him a) Dex can’t sleep, b) Dex is working, or c) to go to sleep, Nursey, honestly.

But he’s been texting Chowder every day, too, and the SMH ‘15-16 group chat, and the SMH ’16-17 group chat, and friends from his classes. It’s chill. It’s fine. This is good. Communication between d-men is good.

They’ve got a winning streak to keep up next year, after all.

────────────

Meeting Dex was like fire meeting gasoline, lighting a fuse, something stirring in his heart, something long-forgotten. Because Derek doesn’t _get_ angry, he doesn’t get _bothered_. He can’t afford to get angry because there are too many things to get angry about.

But William Poindexter was there, always there. They were on the same team, Chowder was his friend. He hated Derek, so Derek hated him back. For every comment about how privileged Derek was, Derek thought about his ammi’s tired face when she saw the news, his father going still around policemen, his mama working endlessly to be seen as worthy in her job despite the scarf wrapped around her head. He thought about generations of people of his faith, his skin, with chains dragging their feet down. He thought about protests and rocks thrown by people braver than he could imagine and the meds he’d had to take this morning.

He got angry.

But in a strange, roundabout way, it was freeing. To be able to argue with someone, to fight with them, to not have to pretend to be constantly fine.

He felt alive.

Derek wanted to get into Dex’s face, poke at his buttons, watch him come undone. He was the instigator for nearly all their fights, and it was because the way Dex exploded, especially when Derek stayed calm, was fascinating. Dex was ignorant and insensitive and entitled. At the same time he looked out for everyone on the team, helped Bitty bake, made jokes that had Derek spitting out his coffee in the morning; he was painstakingly patient and gentle and kind when he wanted to be. He was a study in contradictions, and Derek couldn’t help but try and figure him out.

They butted heads, sat next to each other on roadies with their knees touching, were at each other’s throats whenever they were in the same room, played on the ice together like it was what they were meant to do.

He thought sometimes that Dex probably knew him better than anyone.

Derek had never let himself be angry around someone before.

────────────

**JUNE 2017 (NOW)**

Holster is either drunk or just being himself when he opens the door.

“Nurseeeeyyyy,” he sings, leaning against the doorway and opening his arms for what Derek assumes is a hug.

“Sup, dude,” says Derek, laughing and submitting to the hug. He’s not ashamed to say he feels a little emotional at the end of it. It’s _Holster_.

The party is in full swing, but from what Derek can see, it’s definitely not anything like a kegster. There’s no one singing Defying Gravity (no one, as in Holster and Ransom) and no hysterical sobbing or cheering on someone doing shots. There are people from Samwell that Derek recognizes, but others he doesn’t, and the Falconers, and a table with mini pies and tiny champagne glasses.

“This is a respectable affair,” Holster tells him sagely, leaning on Derek’s shoulder. “Zimbits’ orders. Is that a present?”

“Strictly for the grooms-to-be,” says Derek, holding the gift his moms had helped him pack out of Holster’s reach. “Zimbits?”

“Zimmerman, plus Bits. Like Timbits!” Holster says, voice at his normal volume, which is twice as loud as everyone else’s. “Rans said we should call them that. He’s so smart. Soo smart.”

“You’re definitely drunk,” Derek decides.

“Those champagne glasses are deceptively small,” Holster agrees sadly.

“Lol,” Derek says, looking around. He sees Chowder with his arms around a grinning Farmer, and smiles; Shitty and Lardo in deep conversation with fucking Bad Bob Zimmerman and a pretty woman Derek thinks is his wife; Kent Parson standing awkwardly by a chocolate fountain next to Tater; Ford chatting with Tango, Whiskey noticeably missing; Hops and Bully and Louis gorging on mini pies. The grooms-to-be themselves are together, like they always are, gravitating to each other. Bitty looks so happy Derek has to look away. It’s too personal, not meant for him.

He doesn’t see Dex.

“Where is Rans, anyway?” he asks, and then, extremely casual and definitely totally chill, “And Poindexter?”

“They were arguing in the kitchen, last I saw them,” Holster says. “I told Rans to see if there were any more mini pies there because people were giving us dirty looks for taking too many at the table, and then Dexy’s phone buzzed with a text from youuu saying you were here, so I went to open the door. He wanted to come open the door himself, but Rans was in his stride, you know, near the thesis of his argument, so.”

“And what would that argument be?” “Ransom says you’re Derek,” Holster explains.

“That...is my name,” says Derek slowly, looking for someone to rescue him.

“No,” says Holster. “I mean, that is your name, but Rans says you’re Derek Venturi and Dex is Casey McDonald.”

“Chill,” Derek says. “Who are those people? Canadian hockey players?”

“Weeeelll.” Holster looks shifty. “They are Canadian. From a Canadian show Ransom’s sisters made him watch that aired in like 2005. [Life with Derek](https://youtu.be/CxNZYNMoMZ4).”

“Nice, it’s a show named after me,” Derek says, pleased. “Derek’s the main character, right?”

“No, Casey is. I think. I have of course never watched this show meant for Canadian children ever in my life, not even that one time I watched TV with Ransom’s sisters after lunch. Never.”

“What,” says Derek, offended and ignoring the latter part of Holster’s sentence out of d-man solidarity. “It’s called Life with Derek. Not Life with Casey.”

“Canada,” Holster says with a shrug.

“So Dex and I are like them?” Derek says doubtfully.

“[The resemblance is astounding](https://youtu.be/a-peohlZEbg),” Holster assures him. “Oh, look, it’s Rans with mini pies! You’re not fasting, are you, little frog? Dex and Chowder said you weren’t.”

“Nah,” says Derek, following Holster’s gaze, and finding Ransom with mini pies and without Dex. “It’s not really encouraged to do it when you’re travelling.” His moms were always scared when he was fasting, anyway, because sometimes he’d go for long stretches where he’d forget to eat all day when it wasn’t even Ramadan, writing for hours and hours and not realizing the time. “And you do know I’m not a frog anymore. Dude, I’m a senior now. And you’re not even at Samwell anymore.”

“Lalalalalaa I can’t hear you,” Holster says, and bounds off to Ransom, who smiles instantly as soon as he sees Holster. Seriously. It’s like watching the sun rise.

Derek looks away, again, like he had with Bitty and Jack. He goes over to Chowder, who gives him an enormous and lovely hug just like Holster, and asks him how his summer was like they haven’t been texting each other every day. Farmer greets him more sedately, but she’s smiling. There’s a funny feeling in his chest, surrounded by all these people he loves, with one of Chowder’s arms slung across his shoulder and the other across Farmer’s. Something he can’t really name, something like belonging.

He wants to go to Bitty and Jack, but they’re laughing with Shitty and Lardo. Holster and Ransom have joined them too, but Ransom has his head on Holster’s shoulder and keeps gesturing drunkenly at Tater. From what Derek can see, he’s trying to decide if he should go talk to him. Holster is saying something encouraging, pushing Ransom towards Tater, but his expression is strained, and his mouth is turned down at the corners. Derek wonders what the fuck is going on with him.

He thinks about going over there, but all his friends are dating or practically dating, and goddammit he hasn’t seen Dex in a month. He goes to the kitchen. He’s not sure why his heart is beating so loudly. It’s literally just Dex. It’s literally only been a month.

Whiskey comes out of the kitchen, and when he sees Derek, he actually smiles. It’s so weird that Derek has to blink back at him and raise an eyebrow before smiling back. He doesn’t think Whiskey has ever smiled at him outside of games before.

He enters the kitchen. Dex is in the kitchen. He hasn’t cut his hair, and it curls around the nape of his neck. He’s wearing a dumb flannel shirt despite the heat, and he’s holding a mini pie in his hands. When he sees Derek the pie slips from his hands onto the floor.

Derek’s heart stutters to a stop. He laughs, leans against the doorway. “Jesus, Dex, have I been rubbing off on you?”

“Shut up,” Dex says, except he can’t hide his smile, even as he bends down to pick up the pie.

“Yo,” says Derek when he’s done and has come over to stand in front of the doorway.

“Yo,” Dex says back, his hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans.

Derek smiles foolishly at him. He thinks, _grab a boy, spin him around._ He thinks, _your absence has gone through me, like thread through a needle._ He thinks, _shut up, Nurse._ Unfortunately he thinks that last part in Dex’s voice.

He is so far gone, and he doesn’t even know when he realized it.

“What did you do to Whiskey?” Derek says. “He smiled at me. _Whiskey_.”

Dex shrugs, looking a little pink. “He wanted to talk to me.”

“Oh?” Derek says, and wonders why he feels so irritated all of a sudden. He clears his throat, scrubs a hand through his hair. “Everyone’s arrived now.”

“I know.” Dex raises his eyebrows. “You were the last one. Late, as usual.”

“Oh, fuck off,” says Derek half-heartedly. Dex cackles as he passes Derek, and for a brief wild moment Derek imagines grabbing him and hugging him the way Dex had hugged him the day of Bitty’s graduation. He imagines telling Dex he’s spent the past month thinking of that moment again and again.

He follows Dex out into the hallway instead.

────────────

**MARCH 2015**

Their first kiss is a little inevitable.

Inevitable like two trains hurtling towards each other at top speed. You can’t slow them down, or stop them, but you can’t stop watching either: until they collide in a spectacular crash. 

They don’t usually bring their issues with them to practice, but Derek had woken up and _known_ this was going to be a bad day. Then he’d spilled his coffee on Dex’s shirt. This had three outcomes. The first that Dex had gotten ridiculously pissed at him, worse when Derek told him to chill out. The second was that Derek lost his daily caffeine intake. The third was that he’d had to watch Dex lift up his shirt where the stain was spreading, catching a glimpse of pale and freckled skin, and then he’d looked away, irritated. By the time they’d changed out, tempers were running high.

Practice doesn’t exactly go well – the word “trainwreck” comes to mind – and it’s true that that’s mostly because of Derek and Dex, but Derek still thinks it was unfair of Jack to assign them an extra hour of practice so they can “figure out their differences and leave it off the ice”.

“They’ll murder each other within five minutes,” Bitty had protested, but he’d still left. Chowder had too, and he’d honestly looked a bit relieved, which makes Derek feel really guilty.

Not guilty enough to apologize, though. To apologize _again_ , because he’d already said he was sorry for spilling the coffee.

“This isn’t working,” Dex says, after a few minutes of trudging together in icy silence through practice drills.

He’s right – they’re not getting anywhere with this, but Derek doesn’t want to say so. “I don’t see you coming up with a better idea,” he says instead, voice controlled and calm. He watches Dex bristle, throw his stick down, and open his mouth.

He thinks for a brief moment, in the space between watching the way Dex’s throat moves as he speaks, of saying something to try and diffuse the situation, but why bother? They don’t like each other, and nothing is going to fix that.

“This isn’t _my_ fault – ”

“It’s not mine either,” Derek shoots back.

“My shirt would say otherwise,” Dex snaps.

“Jesus – ” Derek tosses his stick aside and throws his hands up in the air. “It’s a _shirt_. It was an _accident_. What the fuck do you want me to say?”

“You know what, I’m done with this,” Dex says, picking up his stick and skating over to the boards. Derek spares a moment to admire the way he is all carefully controlled motion on the ice, and a wildfire off of it, the speed with which he’s reached the boards and walked out before Derek is picking his stick up and following him off the ice.

“Fine, well, you can tell Jack and the coaches that you couldn’t stand to practice for an extra hour with me,” Derek yells at Dex’s back, ripping his helmet off. He wants to let this go but at the same time he _doesn’t_ , he _hates_ Dex, hates the way he never listens, the way he makes Derek feel solid and bothered and upset.

Dex drops his helmet with a loud thump and turns around. “ _You’re_ the one who can’t – ”

“Can’t what?” Derek says, breathing hard and stepping forward. He’s abruptly aware of the sweat shining on Dex’s collarbone where his jersey has slipped down a bit, of how unsteady he feels now that he no longer skating, balanced precariously on his ice skates without any ice. His ammi used to call him Ariel after she saw him skate, said he was meant to be on the ice the way Ariel was meant to be in the water.

Dex clenches his fists. “You can’t _shut up_ , Nurse – ”

“Oh, _I_ can’t shut up?” Derek laughs, a little wildly. “I don’t even say half of what I really think, but you’re incapable of – ”

And of course this is the moment when Derek loses his footing and slips, and he’s already braced for it, pain on impact.

It doesn’t come. Dex has crossed the small space between them and caught him before he ever fell.

Startled, Derek looks up. Dex’s brows are furrowed and his eyes like candlelight, and he doesn’t look pissed off for once. For a moment, Derek thinks he’s going to –

“You can’t even stand without tripping,” Dex says, looking away.

It lacks any of the fond teasing of a chirp and Derek flushes from his head to his toes, embarrassed and furious. “Fuck you, Poindexter,” he says. “I don’t know Chowder can stand you – how _anyone_ – ”

“I don’t know how anyone can stand _you_!” Dex shouts, pulling away. Without his arms around Derek, Derek suddenly feels less steady on the ground and it makes him even angrier. “With your stupid chill and how you’re a walking disaster wherever you go – I can’t believe I – ”

“What?” Derek says. He shoves Dex’s shoulder and says it again. _“What?”_ Just to make everything worse because God, he’s tired and nothing he does makes it better anyway.

Dex glares at him, shoves him back. Like he’s all of five years old, Derek shoves him again, and then he’s being shoving back into the boards and Dex is kissing him.

And okay, objectively it should be a terrible kiss. They’re both drenched with sweat, still in their gear, and Derek’s helmet is clenched in one of his hands. The boards are rough against his back. Dex isn’t even gay, Derek’s pretty sure anyway. He doesn’t like Dex – Dex doesn’t like him – but he opens his mouth easily, hungrily, kisses back like he’s been waiting for this since that first glimpse of skin. Since that first time Dex grasped his hand the first time they met and didn’t return Derek’s easy smile. He doesn’t like Dex and Dex doesn’t like him, but one of Dex’s hands is warm against his neck, and the other is leaning down to intertwine their fingers absently.

Derek is thinking: _oh shit_ , and then his helmet falls from his hand and clatters to the ground.

The sound is like a trigger. Dex pulls back from him immediately. They bump heads, like they always do, and then they’re left to stare at each other.

Derek is torn between a small part of him that is grateful that there’s still time to fix this, they haven’t gone too far, and another bigger part that just wants to keep making this mistake. That part just wants Dex back against him.

“I’m sorry,” Dex says, which is, of course, just the kind of thing Derek wants to hear after someone’s kissed him. Dex’s mouth is pink and swollen, and his hair is a mess – _oh,_ Derek thinks, almost in a detached way, _that was me._

Dex looks _wretched_. Derek wonders if he’s having his big gay freakout now. “I’m sorry,” he says again. “Nurse, I didn’t think – I _really_ didn’t mean to – ”

Message received, loud and clear, ouch. “Hey, dude,” Derek says gently, pushing himself off the boards and miraculously not falling over. “It’s okay, it’s fine. I’m not going to – ”

“I really shouldn’t have – ” Dex stammers. He looks suddenly ashamed, like he’s remembered something. “I didn’t mean what I said before – you’re not a walking disaster – I mean, you are, but – ”

“I know you didn’t mean it,” Derek says, and wonders which part he’s talking about. “I didn’t – I shouldn’t have said what I did either, it’s not true – ”

“I wasn’t trying to be mean or anything, I mean, I was but not when I – you know – that is so not what I – ”

“What were you trying – ”

“I just, I don’t know, I was pissed off, and I took it out on you and I shouldn’t have – ”

“It’s chill – ”

“Nursey,” Dex says, letting out a strangled laugh and looking at him for a long time. “This was my fault. I’m trying to apologize. And I understand if you don’t want to play together anymore, or – ”

“No!” It comes out of his mouth before he can even think about a response. “No, look, it’s fine. We’ll forget about it.”

Derek extends his fist out. Dex looks at him again, before carefully bumping his fist against Derek’s.

“It’ll be like nothing ever happened,” Derek says. His smile only wavers a little bit.

They don’t look at each other when they change out of their gear.

If something is different between them after, if they’re a bit softer, a bit kinder, no one calls them out on it. They avoid each other for a month. Chowder figures they’re still upset over a fight. (He’s not wrong.) They’re back to normal, sniping at each other over breakfast, within another month. There’s never really an appropriate time for Derek to ask Dex, _hey are you gay dude lol_. The answer, he figures, is probably no. He, on the other hand, has never bothered hiding it from Dex that he’s bi.

They’ve been fighting so much, it’s natural that things would get confused, he reasons to himself. So it’s chill.

They don’t fight at practice again. It’s not even a year later when they mention it again, but that’s a different story.

────────────

**JUNE 2017 (NOW)**

“This is going to be so much fun,” Chowder says, bouncing at Derek’s right.

Dex, to Derek’s left, says doubtfully, “This is going to end in little to no sleep.”

“You’re both correct,” Derek says, cheerfully.

Chowder sighs. “I just wish Cait could have stayed over.”

“Fine,” Dex and Derek say at the same time.

“One: we’re not in the Haus.” Chowder crosses his arms. “Two: that wasn’t even a fineable offense. Three: there’s no Sin Bin here.”

Derek grins and drops his hockey bag, which contains no hockey equipment but instead skincare and a change of clothes, on the floor.

“Y’all are alright to share with Rans and Holster and Shitty?” asks Bitty from behind them, peering up to look at the room. There’s one big bed in the corner that Derek imagines everyone will fight to the death for, pillows and sleeping bags strewn across the floor, and a door to what he assumes is a bathroom.

“Totally, Bits,” Derek assures him.

“The house is definitely big enough for everyone to spread out,” Bitty frets, “but everyone wanted to stay together – the waffles, Ford, Whiskey, and Tango are in the other – Ford said it was alright with her but maybe she should room with Lardo instead – ”

“Lards is probably going to come in here later even if you did room her with Ford,” Derek points out. “Anyway, Bits, it’s fine.”

“Right,” Bitty says. “Well, I wanted to talk to you three alone anyway, so we’d better take advantage of this time before everyone comes bursting in.”

“Sure, yeah,” says Dex, exchanging surprised looks with Chowder and Derek as they turn to face Bitty.

“Y’all know Jack and I, we’ll be getting married soon,” Bitty says, and looks so happy that Derek’s heart hurts. “I don’t know when – if I could I would right now – But, well, Shitty and Lardo and Tater are going to be Jack’s groomsmen. I thought Ransom could be Jack’s other groomsman, since they’re both Canadian, not that I’d want to separate Rans and Holster, but I wanted an even number on both sides. So that would leave Holster with me and I thought – that y’all three, my Frogs, could be my other groomsmen.”

“Aw, Bits,” Derek says, feeling appropriately choked up and a little teary. “Bits, of _course_.”

“Me too!” Chowder says. “I’d love to be, Bitty, I really would!”

Derek casts a sidelong glance at Dex, the only one who hasn’t had a spoken reaction yet. “Wait,” he says incredulously, “Dex, are you crying?”

“No,” Dex lies, voice suspiciously croaky. “Bitty, it would be an honour.”

“You _are_ crying!” Derek says gleefully.

“I swear to God, Nurse – ”

Bitty bursts into tears. “Y’all are all grown up but you’ll always be my Frogs to me, and you’re both still chirping each other – oh, I’m being so silly – ”

Which is the moment where Chowder pulls them all in for a group hug. Derek ends up with someone’s armpit shoved against his stomach and his face mushed in someone’s shirt. It’s one of the best moments of his life.

Of course, then Ransom, Holster, Shitty, and Lardo come into the doorway with their sleeping bags, which are abandoned in favour of leaping into the group hug and knocking everyone down on the floor.

“Ouch,” Dex says, muffled by Chowder landing right on top of him.

Derek, more used to the pain of falling on the floor, looks over at him and laughs.

Bitty gets up eventually, with what he claims are a dozen bruises, and heads off to go to his bedroom. “To sleep with his honey-bunny,” Holster crows. Bitty throws a pillow at him and Derek nearly pisses himself laughing. This leaves the seven of them, still lying on the floor, to decide who gets the bed.

“I vote for Lardo,” Derek says, sitting up on his elbows.

“That is the gentlemanly thing to do,” Ransom agrees.

“Brah, there’s space for two people on that bed,” argues Holster. “It’s massive. It’s massive like Jack’s ass is massive.”

They all eye the bed consideringly.

“Me and Shits will take the bed, then,” Lardo says.

“Absolutely not,” Dex says. “Couples don’t get to share the bed when the rest of us have to sleep.”

“That’s a fucking fineable offense,” Shitty concurs.

“I have another rule.” Derek collapses back on the floor and stretches out his leg. “Shitty has to have at least one article of clothing on at all times.”

Shitty’s yelp of protest is surpassed by everyone else other than Lardo’s loud murmur of agreement.

“Okay okay,” Chowder says, “how about no one takes the bed, and we _all_ sleep on the floor.”

“I vote Chowder gets the bed,” Derek says.

“Seconded,” says Dex.

“Thanks guys!” Chowder says, sounding genuinely moved.

Holster sighs loudly. “Fine. Chowder and Lardo will get the bed.”

“Swawesome,” Lardo says, leaning over to high-five Chowder.

Derek staggers up and grabs his fallen hockey bag, stumbling over Shitty’s arm. “I,” he announces, “am going to change.”

“No,” Dex says immediately, pushing Chowder off of him and scrambling up to Derek. “No way. You take fifteen years in the bathroom. You’re going last.”

“I do _not_ ,” Derek objects indignantly, to a chorus of _Well you kinda do bro_ and _No you definitely do._ “Betrayal,” says Derek, mournfully. “I expected it from Dex, but not all of you.” Dex rolls his eyes. Derek waits another moment to make sure Dex won’t be expecting anything. Then he makes a mad rush for the bathroom, leaping over Holster’s legs and opening the door, while Dex tries too late to catch up but is thwarted by a sleeping bag thrown casually in his way. By the time Dex is hammering on the bathroom door, Derek has already locked it, and is pressing his body weight against the door while trying not to dissolve into giggles.

“Nursey!” Dex yells. “Nursey, open the door.”

Derek hears Chowder, that traitor, telling everyone in the background, “We should probably leave them to it. This could take a while.”

Derek turns on the tap loudly and shouts back, “I can’t hear you!”

“Don’t think this is over, Nursey,” Dex says threateningly. “You think I can’t get into a locked door?”

“Well, yes,” says Derek, pausing in the middle of washing his face. “Also, that’s kind of creepy, Dex.”

“Shut up.”

“Great comeback,” Derek drawls, “really clever.”

“I’m not the English major!” Dex says. If Derek were a betting man, he’d bet his whole life savings that Dex was blushing right now. “If I wasn’t a guest in this house I would kick this door down.”

Derek laughs. He’s still laughing after he’s finished brushing his teeth, cleansing, exfoliating, toning, moisturizing, and changing into his pajama pants. Normally he doesn’t sleep with any clothes on, but the idea of stepping out even in just his underwear with Dex out there is horrifying. It’s ridiculous. They’ve seen each other naked before. They’re on a hockey team together, and they change in the same fucking locker room. They’ve shared rooms on roadies, and they had shared Lardo’s room before Dex moved out. It’s just – weird. He can’t do it.

When he opens the door, he nearly trips over Dex, who’s glowering on the floor, with his knees up in front of the bathroom. Everyone else who would bother to change has already changed and settled into their respective sleeping areas, and they all look fairly exasperated.

“I told him to use a different bathroom, but he had to be all dramatic,” Chowder says from where he’s snuggled on the bed. He has his phone on his lap, which means he was probably calling Farmer. Lardo hasn’t joined him; she’s sitting in Shitty’s lap where his sleeping bag is set out in front of the bed. Ransom and Holster have put theirs down side by side a few spaces away. Dex’s is next to the bed, and Derek’s, which he remembers tossing down haphazardly, is near Dex’s.

He’s sleeping near Dex.

Fine. He can do that. No problemo.

“This is Dex you’re talking about, he’s always dramatic,” says Derek, poking at Dex’s knee.

Dex stands up. He says, on his way past Derek, “I’ll have you know, I timed how long you took in the bathroom, and it was exactly fifteen minutes.”

“Pfttt,” Derek says, going over to the bed and shoving his hockey bag beneath it. He switches Dex’s sleeping bag so that Derek is next to the bed, and therefore near Chowder.

“He’ll murder you for that,” Ransom notes.

“Let him,” Derek says dramatically. “I’ll do anything to be near the light of my life, the apple of my eye, Chris Chow. Farmer is so lucky.”

Honestly, Derek is not exaggerating even the slightest bit.

Chowder laughs, and then says, “Dex and Nursey are way better lately! They’re almost like you and Holster.”

“Almost?” says Derek, offended. He sits down and leans against the bed.

“Bro, you and Dex may have moved past your differences,” Holster says, “and as your fellow d-men – ”

“Holster, we don’t play hockey together anymore.”

“As your fellow d-men,” Holster continues loudly, “Rans and I applaud you for it. We are so proud – ”

“So proud,” Ransom says, nodding.

“Of you both,” finishes Holster. “But you both will never reach, _could_ never reach – ”

“The level of d-men connection that Holtzy and I have,” says Ransom, shrugging.

“How dare you,” Derek says. The door opens to reveal Dex, who has of course changed and brushed his teeth in an efficient and quick time period. “Dex, you should _hear_ the slander they’re spreading on our good names!”

“What are you talking about,” Dex says, closing the door to the bathroom with his foot. “Nursey, did you seriously _switch_ our sleeping bags – ”

“Honestly, I gotta agree with Rans and Holster,” Lardo says, shrugging apologetically at Derek. “I was there for the Disastrous Dib Flip of ’16. You and Dex have come far, but not _that_ far.”

“C?” Derek turns to Chowder. “You’re on our side, right?”

“Um,” Chowder says. “I mean. Yes? I definitely don’t think Ransom and Holster are better than you guys, no offence Ransom and Holster! And I’ve seen first-hand you and Dex’s progress!”

“We _are_ better,” Holster says. “Like, bro, like Rans was saying, Nursey and Dex are like, Derek and Casey, but Rans and I are like, Gabriella and Troy.”

“What,” Dex says.

“Bro, you’re so right!” Ransom says to Holster. “Shitty, you’re the tiebreaker.”

“What the fuck are you all talking about,” Dex says.

“Brahs,” Shitty says, holding up a hand. “There’s only one way to solve this.”

“You vote and settle the dispute?” Ransom asks.

“No.” Shitty shakes his head. In reverent tones, he says, “This can only be solved through an ancient Samwell tradition: The Battle of D-Men.”

There’s a moment of silence.

“Is that a thing?”

“I’ve never heard of that.”

“Me neither.”

“Yeah, I think you just made that up, Shits.”

“That really doesn’t exist.”

“What the _fuck_ are you guys talking about?”

“This is a thing!” Shitty hollers over all them. “Two pairs of defensemen fight for the right to be called the best pair of defensemen on their team. Through – ” He pauses for suspense. _“Trivia.”_

Another silence.

“No, I don’t really think – ”

“Yeah, that’s not – ”

“SILENCE!” Shitty says. “Non-believers. The best pair of defensemen, Adam Birkholtz aka Holster and Justin Oluransi aka Ransom, or Derek Nurse aka Nursey and William Poindexter aka Dex, will be decided by which defensemen know each other better. Through a series of gruelling, personal questions.”

“Fine,” Holster says. “No way will Rans and I lose. We know each other better than anyone.”

“First of all, I’m still confused,” Dex says, “but second of all, you and Ransom aren’t even d-men anymore. You don’t play hockey anymore, remember?”

“Once a d-man – ” begins Holster.

“Always a d-man,” Ransom finishes.

“It’s in the bylaws,” Lardo says.

“Yeah, well, Dex and I are _still_ playing hockey together. And no way are we going to lose,” Derek retorts. “Right, Dex?”

“I still have no idea what you’re talking about,” Dex says. Then his chin takes on that stubborn tilt Derek is so familiar with. “But we are definitely winning.”

“I wish I had popcorn right now!” Chowder says.

And thus begins the The Battle of D-Men of June ‘17: Birkholtz (Holster) & Oluransi (Ransom) v. Nurse (Nursey) & Poindexter (Dex).

Or at least that’s what Shitty keeps calling it.

Chowder slips down from the bed with his comforter and pillow next to Derek, who keeps one arm on Chowder’s shoulder. The other arm keeps knocking against Dex, who’s pressed close to him on his other side, perched on his sleeping bag. Holster sits next to Dex, Ransom beside him, then Lardo halfway out of Shitty’s lap, and then Shitty. They’re all sitting in a circle like they’re a bunch of teenage girls at a sleepover stealing their parents’ liquor and playing Never Have I Ever. The comparison, Derek has to admit, is not that far off. He’s pretty sure everyone other than him, Dex, and Chowder are still drunk. And Chowder seems a little tipsy, but he’s a lightweight, so he’s probably only had one drink. Derek hadn’t wanted to drink during Ramadan, but he doesn’t know why Dex refrained from the tiny yet strangely appealing champagne glasses.

“I need four whiteboards!” Shitty announces dramatically.

“We don’t have four whiteboards. Or one whiteboard,” Lardo says. “I do have a pen. And a napkin?”

“What would I do without you,” says Shitty, accepting the aforementioned pen and napkin.

The rules, Shitty proclaims, are like this: Shitty will ask one person from each team a question. They must provide the same answer that the other person from their team would provide in order to gain a point. Chowder and Lardo will keep track of the points on Lardo’s napkin.

“Did you get this from Victorious?” Holster asks.

“Shut the fuck up or you’re disqualified.”

The game, continues Shitty, will end only when one team surrenders their defeat.

“Some of us have to be up early to drive home,” Dex says. “And we should try to keep the noise level down, too. I don’t want to wake anyone up if they’re sleeping.”

“It’s not even midnight yet, everyone deserves to be woken up if they’re sleeping!” Holster complains.

“Dex is right, dudes, people need their sleep,” Lardo says, and Lardo’s word is law.

The game, amends Shitty, will end only when one team surrenders their defeat, or until it is past the witching hour. “3 A.M.,” Derek explains to Dex and Chowder.

Finally, Shitty says: there will be no cheating of any kind. This is not any other game wherein cheating is totally encouraged and swawesome. If one d-man’s answer is incorrect, the other must not lie to say that it is correct instead. If it is suspected that one is lying about the correct answer, Lardo will check to see if it really is true for Ransom and Holster, and Chowder will check for Derek and Dex.

“A victory is hollow unless it is true,” Holster says solemnly.

“That was kind of deep,” says Dex, looking impressed. Derek punches him in the shoulder and tells him not to fraternize with the enemy.

“Now,” Shitty cries, “let the games begin!”

“Did you get that from – ”

“First question,” says Shitty loudly, “is for Dex and Ransom. Dex, what movie does Nursey watch when he’s sick?”

“Um, do I answer right now?” Dex says. “Or do I wait? Are there like points for answering quicker – ”

“No, there are no points for – just answer the question,” Shitty says, sighing.

“Um,” Dex says again, blinking, and Derek is about to give up hope when he says, “Bring It On: All or Nothing.”

Shitty turns expectantly to Derek. “It’s true, bro,” Derek says, nodding. “Rihanna and Solange cure any sickness immediately.”

“I can confirm!” Chowder chimes in. “We watched it last week.”

“I can confirm too,” Shitty admits. “We watched it in Andover.”

“Represent,” Derek says, leaning forward to give him a high-five.

Lardo puts down one tally mark for the N&D column, balancing her napkin on Shitty’s knee.

Shitty turns next to Ransom, who immediately rattles off, “Mamma Mia, When Harry Met Sally, Notting Hill – we’re not counting TV shows, are we, because if we are, then – ”

“Aw, bro!” Holster says, beaming.

Lardo puts down a tally mark for the R&H column.

“Next question,” Shitty announces, “is for Nursey and Holster. Who would be the best man at your d-man’s wedding?”

“Me, obviously,” Holster says.

“Chowder,” says Derek confidently, which pauses the game for a while because Chowder gets emotional. Then it’s one more for the N&D column, one more for the R&H column.

“Dex and Holster,” says Shitty very seriously. “What is the last meal your d-man cooked?”

“Barbecue,” Holster says, and Ransom nods.

“Are you joking?” Dex says.

“How dare you insult The Battle of the D-Men,” thunders Shitty. “Admit you don’t know the answer and move on.”

“Are you drunk, then?” asks Dex. “I don’t know why I asked that. You are drunk. It’s pasta. The last meal that Nursey cooked. He doesn’t know how to make anything else.”

“Hey!” Derek says indignantly.

“That’s true, Nursey,” Lardo says.

Derek crosses his arms. “Just give me my question.”

“Nursey and Ransom, what is your d-man’s lockscreen and homescreen?”

“Oh, he doesn’t _have_ one,” Derek says, in disgust. “It’s awful. It’s just the programmed backgrounds that were already there when he got the phone.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that, Nursey – ”

“There are many things wrong with that, Dex – ”

“Holster’s lockscreen is a picture of our graduation day with Lards, Shitty, Jack, me, and his family,” interrupts Ransom. “And his homescreen is our best selfie.”

After Shitty insists that he wants to check their phones just to make sure, Lardo puts down another two tally marks.

Shitty points his fingers at Dex and Ransom. “What are Nursey and Holster’s favorite Disney movies?”

“Tangled,” Ransom says.

“And at last I seeeeeeeee the light,” sings Holster. “I have such good taste.”

“Also Mulan,” adds Ransom.

“Li Shang is an icon,” Holster says.

“Nursey’s is The Princess and the Frog,” Dex says.

“Oh yeah!” Chowder laughs. “Because he has a huge crush on Prince Naveen!”

“That is _not_ why,” Derek says hotly.

“Because he’s just like Prince Naveen,” Dex says, voice dry.

“Not that either!” Derek says.

Lardo tilts her head. “Dude, I see it. Does this mean you have a crush on the animated version of yourself?”

Dex starts laughing.

“The Princess and the Frog is my favorite movie because it’s the first Disney movie that had a black princess and a prince who’s a person of colour who were portrayed in a nuanced and developed way, and the soundtrack went off, and the ending was perfect,” Derek says primly.

“Sure,” Dex agrees, “but also – ”

“Moving on!” Shitty clears his throat. “Nursey! And Ransom!”

“Why do you keep changing the order of who you ask,” says Dex in a tired voice.

“Because he wants to, Dex,” Lardo says. “Go on, Shits.”

“ _Thank_ you, Lardo,” Shitty says. “Nursey and Ransom, what is your d-man’s ideal date?”

“Okay, I wasn’t going to say anything,” Lardo murmurs, “but these questions are – ”

“Ridiculous?” Dex offers. He’s turned beet-red, sitting cross-legged with his knees touching Derek’s legs. If Derek could blush, he’d probably be red now too.

Ideal date. Jesus. What the fuck did he agree to?

“Well,” Lardo says delicately.

Shitty waves them off. “These questions are totally relevant. Ransom?”

“Easy,” Ransom says. “Ideal date would either be staying in bed and watching Netflix while eating popcorn, or at a picnic in a park, or something a hockey game or laser tag. Anything, really, as long as he liked the person he was with. Holster has no game.”

“I have game,” Holster argues weakly. “But yeah, that’s.” He and Ransom aren’t looking directly at each other, and Holster has turned pink. White people genes, Derek thinks. “That’s it. Yeah. He’s right.”

Lardo’s eyebrows shoot up. “Oooookaayyy.”

Derek clears his throat. “Well, Dex also has no game. So his ideal date would probably be going out to play hockey or to skate, and inviting – you know – whoever he’s with back to his place so he can make them, like, dinner or something.” He doesn’t dare look in Dex’s direction.

“Pretty much, yeah,” Dex says, voice quiet. “But I totally have game, Nurse, fuck off.”

“Aww,” Shitty says. “You do know each other. If freshman year Dex and Nursey could see you now! The Battle of the D-Men reveals everything.”

Derek gives him the finger.

“Okay, okay, next,” says Shitty. “Dex and Holster, who is your d-man’s favorite member of One Direction?”

“Zayn,” Dex says immediately. 

“Chyeah, let’s go, bro,” Derek says, turning to Dex and holding up his hand for a high-five. The high-five is miraculously returned, and Dex’s mouth in the dark is a wondrous shape, half-lifted into a smile.

“Does he even count – ” someone starts.

“You don’t want to ask that,” Chowder says gravely.

“Ransom’s is Liam or Harry,” Holster says. “But _Louis_ is clearly the best member of One Direction.”

”I love Harry, though,” Derek protests.

“What about Niall?” Chowder asks, frowning.

“We are getting off-topic!” says Shitty. “But also, the best member is definitely Niall or Louis. Harry’s flow was sick until he chopped it off.” Shitty shakes his head mournfully.

“No, it’s Zayn,” Lardo says.

“I’d say Niall or Liam, actually,” admits Dex. “Zayn’s cool too.” 

_“What about Harry?”_

In another twenty minutes, they manage to reach a consensus that there is no best member of One Direction.

“Score,” Lardo proclaims, “is currently at seven-seven. No one’s favor.”

“We’re _still_ tied,” says Chowder, peering at the napkin.

“Not for long,” Dex says grimly, rolling up his sleeves. Derek absolutely does not stare at the stretch of his pale and freckled forearms or his knobbly wrists.

Twenty questions later and two hours later, they’re no longer tied but it’s not in Derek and Dex’s favor, and the questions are progressively making less and less sense. They’ve gotten only one question wrong, about which High School Musical song represents your relationship. (Derek really thinks Shitty was scraping the bottom of the barrel by then.) Dex has never watched High School Musical so he’d guessed Breaking Free, while Derek went for the obvious choice of I Don’t Dance. Ransom and Holster had just burst into a rendition of What I’ve Been Looking For.

Derek is yawning into Chowder’s shoulder, Shitty’s eyes keep falling closed, Dex is blinking rapidly, and Ransom and Holster are just laying down on their sleeping bags. Lardo, stone cold fox of Derek’s heart, is the only one fully awake.

“What is – ” Shitty blinks. “What is. The colour of Dex’s toothbrush, Nursey?”

“Are you – ” Dex lets out an enormous yawn. “Are you serious, dude.”

“I’m fucking deadly serious, dude,” Shitty says, leaning his against Lardo’s thigh.

“It’s green,” Derek answers.

“Holy shit, it is green,” says Dex.

“Yessss,” whispers Derek to Chowder. “I’ve seen it sooo many times. During roadies. And when we shared a room.”

“Holster,” Shitty says, bringing himself upright and immediately falling back down again, “Holster…” He starts snoring.

There is a silence.

“Are you kidding me?” Dex bursts out. “He makes us play this game and now he’s asleep? It’s not even the witching hour – I mean – ”

“Guess that means we win,” Holster sings from the floor. “And you guys…lost!”

“Losers,” Ransom mutters, eyes halfway shut.

“We,” Derek says, “have _not_ surrendered yet.” The effectiveness of this statement is a bit lost by the massive yawn that interrupts him in the middle. Look, his sleep schedule was already a bit of a wreck, and it’s Ramadan now. He can’t be held responsible for this.

“Guys, we are the Samwell Men’s Hockey team,” Chowder says. “Or. Well, three of us are the Samwell Men’s Hockey team. But we were all part of the Samwell Men’s Hockey team at one point! We throw epic kegsters. We stay up all night. We argue on roadies until the sun comes up. We do not fall asleep at a mere – what time is it?”

“2 AM,” Lardo tells him.

“We are a disgrace,” Holster says sadly.

“Dudes, I’m going to sleep now,” says Lardo, dragging her and Shitty’s sleeping bags towards them, and gently removing Shitty’s head from her leg while he snores on obliviously. “Rans and Holster won, I guess. Honestly, I’m gonna be real here for a sec and say Shitty was totally making up all those questions on the spot, and no way do I have the brainpower for that right now. It might actually be an ancient and true Samwell tradition, though.” She looks considering, then shrugs, and tucks into her sleeping bag.

“We still have Chowder,” Derek says.

Everyone looks at him.

Derek sighs. “He’s asleep, isn’t he?”

“Mm-hm,” says Dex.

Derek looks beside him to see Chowder collapsed in the comforter he’d brought down from the bed, one pillow under his head, with his arm stretched out. “I probably should have seen that coming.”

“Anyway, Shitty was the only impartial...impartial...God I’m so tired,” Ransom says.

“Judge,” Holster says. “The only impartial judge! So give it up!”

Ransom waves a hand in his direction. “Correct.”

“We are not giving up,” Derek says. Then they’re arguing, while everyone sleeps on despite the noise, trained to sleep through insanely loud kegsters, Derek and Dex’s arguments, and Holster’s musical renditions.

“Nursey and I should gain a point because we’re still playing hockey together while you’re not,” Dex says, voice drowsy. “And you’ve both known each other for long, you have an unfair advantage, so we should – we should get a point for that. So that means we’re tied. Aha!”

“That doesn’t make...any...sense,” counters Ransom sleepily.

“We’re better d-men cause we’ve done – better stuff than you,” Holster says, in the logic of someone who is either extremely drunk or extremely tired. “We’re like, super close. We’ve visited each other’s families multiple times. We’ve spent major holidays with each other’s families. We’re the closest d-men. Like, I’m so close to Ransom I’ve kissed him. I’ll prove it right now.” And Derek’s mouth falls open as Holster leans over and kisses Ransom, one hand reaching into Ransom’s hair and tugging him closer. It’s not like Derek is trying to look – definitely not – but well, he’s only human, Holster and Ransom are both really hot, he had a minor crush on both of them in frog year, and apparently – this is not something Derek needed to know, but apparently – Ransom is really _loud_.

“Um,” Dex says, voice strangled.

Derek can relate. This is not chill.

Holster breaks away looking dazed and unsure, staring at Ransom for a few moments, before he looks to Dex and Derek and points at them triumphantly. “We win,” he says.

“You win because of _that_?” Dex says incredulously, recovering his composure. Though he’s still blushing. “Oh, please.” He turns to Derek, and raises an eyebrow questioningly.

Derek swallows. He is not awake enough to deal with whatever the fuck kind of messed up game of gay chicken is going on. But he knows Dex’s expressions well enough to know what Dex is asking him. That tilt of an eyebrow, that faint blush in his cheeks, his eyes darting from Holster back to Derek.

Well. He wants to win.

He nods.

“Yeah?” Dex says.

“Yeah,” Derek echoes, shrugging like it’s all cool, might as well, right.

Dex tugs on his shirt and brings him over to kiss him.

It’s probably the smoothest move Dex has ever made. _Holy shit, didn’t think you had it in you, Poindexter,_ Derek thinks a little hysterically. He tastes a bit like mint toothpaste. They have done this once before, and it was the same, but it was different. Derek kisses him back, slow and sure and steady, like coming home to a lover in bed after a long night at work. He has, if he’s being honest, been waiting for this since freshman year.

When they part, Derek is looking at Dex. Dex is not looking at him.

Holster lets out a low whistle, laughing and shaking his head. “Okay, I gotta hand that one to you.”

“Shitty would have a lot to say about straight male privilege and inherent homoerectism right now,” Ransom reflects.

“I’m pretty sure no one currently awake in this room is straight,” says Dex dryly. Derek nearly chokes and falls back down on his sleeping bag in shock, jostling Chowder, who _Jesus_ is still in the room. He just needs to lay here for a bit. And. Process.

Obviously, he knew – Dex came out to him and Chowder sophomore year, but he’d said it so easily calmly. So _chill._ Derek’s life is a joke.

“Dude,” Holster says. “Thank you for trusting me with this moment.”

“Me too,” says Ransom, sitting up and extending his hand out for a fist-bump. Dex returns it slowly and smiles.

“I’m going to hug you in the morning. When I am fully conscious,” Holster decides. “But this still doesn’t mean you win.”

“Neither do you,” Derek retorts, voice a little hoarse. He stares at the ceiling. It’s really fucking hot in this room. Is that just him?

“We’ll win eventually,” says Ransom, laying back down.

“Totally,” Holster says, collapsing onto his sleeping back. “Just as soon as I...get up…”

“Yeah,” Ransom murmurs. “Yeah,” Derek repeats, “and I am not closing my eyes. No way.”

He really doesn’t mean to close his eyes, but then Dex is murmuring, “Fuck it,” and laying down beside him. Their sleeping bags are so close together, they’re close enough to kiss. Again. He feels safe.

No one ends up sleeping on the bed after all.

────────────

It’s not like Derek can point to one specific moment in one specific time period where he was like _oh my fucking god, I’m in love with William Poindexter._ He can point to one specific moment in one specific time period where he was like _oh my fucking god, William Poindexter just kissed me_. Or one specific moment in one specific time period where he was like _oh my fucking god, I hate William Poindexter,_ then later, _I don’t hate William Poindexter._

The closest thing to a full-on epiphany is when he’d gone for fro-yo with Dex, Chowder, and Farmer near the end of sophomore year. They’d all three of them wedged into a too-small booth, Chowder and Farmer on one side and Derek and Dex on the other. He could feel his ankle knocking against Dex’s, and hear every breath Dex took in. Farmer had made a joke, and Dex had laughed. Derek had looked at him and thought, briefly, desperately, fervently: _Allah, please._ Then Chowder had kicked his leg from under the table, and he’d looked up to laugh too, even though he hadn’t heard the joke.

 _I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation for my love. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew I had begun._ Pride and Prejudice. Though Derek had always thought of himself as more like Elizabeth.

He was a poet. He fell in love too easily, with the curve of a girl’s collarbone or the flash of a boy’s smile, a dimple in someone’s cheek and their bright laughter drifting away with the wind. He was a lover. _Mijo, you give your heart away too fast,_ his father said. _Who do you think he gets it from,_ his ammi would laugh. He was a writer. His fingers were smudged with ink and his head was full of faraway dreams. He was a romantic. He wanted everything too much, so he had to pretend he didn’t want anything at all.

Three years: he watches Dex grow up, grow into his skin. He watches Dex change, stand up taller but aware when he is in the wrong. He watches Dex become a truer version of himself. He can’t help it. He falls. He leaps. He jumps. He stumbles, into love.

Loving Dex is not easy. It is not what he thought it would be, if he’d ever imagined it at all. It is not like anything else. There is nothing he can compare it to.

Three years. They are both stubborn, they both do not give an inch, but eventually they reach an understanding. And when they reach that understanding, he inches closer and closer towards an understanding of his own.

If he was pining, or brooding, or writing poetry about the curve of Dex’s neck in the notebook Dex had gotten him for his birthday about it, that was no one’s business but his own.

────────────

**JUNE 2017 (NOW)**

Derek wakes up with a crick in his neck and someone’s legs tangled with his. He’s sleeping on something solid and warm. It’s weirdly comfortable, at least until he stretches and opens his eyes and looks up – up – to see that the solid and warm thing he’s sleeping on is Dex.

For a moment, Derek stares at him. The morning sunlight turns his eyes golden, and shines bright on his bedhead. Derek can see every freckle on his face upside down from where Derek’s head is resting on his chest.

“Hi,” Dex says.

Derek screams.

Dex winces, one hand covering his ears. “Jesus, Nurse, warn a guy next time.”

“Sorry,” says Derek, voice only a little high-pitched. “Sorry! I was just startled. It’s chill.”

“You are definitely _not_ chill when you first wake up,” Dex says, disgruntled.

 _Move_ , Derek thinks to himself. _Move. Immediately!_ He scrambles up, grabs his hockey bag from under the bed, and promptly gets tangled up in his sleeping bag. He spends a few minutes trying to kick it off while Dex watches indulgently.

“It’s noon. Everyone else is already awake, though they got up pretty late,” Dex tells him, sitting up and stifling a yawn. “Except for Ransom. Holster moved him to the bed and says not to touch him because he’s really tired, apparently.”

Derek pauses. He looks next to him, where Chowder was last night but is no longer. In the bed where Chowder had been meant to sleep, there’s a shape beneath a pile of blankets and pillows that vaguely resembles Ransom.

“I didn’t want to wake you up,” says Dex, and now he’s blushing. “I mean, you said you’re tired too, since you have to wake up before the sun rises to eat for Ramadan? So I didn’t want to wake you up.”

“Oh,” Derek says.

“There’s probably going to be a lot of chirping, though,” Dex warns him. “I think Chowder took fifteen pictures of us and made one his homescreen. Bitty did stop them from drawing a mustache on our faces, so at least there’s that. He’s making breakfast right now. Nursey, do you need some help?” He starts to stand up.

“No!” Derek says, a little too loudly, shuffling back with his sleeping bag, still tied up in his legs. “No, I’m just. Gonna go brush my teeth. Ha-ha.”

“Are you okay?” Dex asks slowly.

“Of course,” Derek lies, hopping to the bathroom, still with his sleeping bag. “Why wouldn’t I be? I’m – ” He wobbles, trips over the sleeping bag, and topples onto the floor.

“Nursey!”

Before Dex can reach him, Derek hastens to stand up, picking up his hockey bag and leaving that goddamn sleeping bag on the ground. He smiles at Dex, who does not look reassured, and reaches out to open the bathroom door.

“I’m really sorry if last night made things weird – ”

“Weird? Why would anything be weird?” Derek says. “Nothing’s weird at at all. See you soon!” He closes the door behind him and rests his head against it for a moment.

 _See you soon?_ Derek groans, sliding his palm over his face.

Everything is weird. Not just with him, but with Dex too. Dex should have laughed at him and chirped him to hell and back for what was a painful but ridiculous incident, and _then_ seemed concerned. He hadn’t.

And Derek _can’t stop thinking about it._ He’s imagining opening the door and rushing over to Dex and just kissing him, getting tangled up in their sleeping bags and unbuttoning Dex’s dumb flannel pajama shirt –

“Ughhhhh,” Derek says to himself.

When he comes out of the bathroom, Dex isn’t there, and the lump on the bed is gone too. Derek guesses Dex and Ransom have already gone downstairs.

He heads down to the kitchen, following the smell of Bitty’s Haus-renowned pancakes, and finds everyone in the dining room next door, Dex sitting at the table next to Chowder, and Ransom next to Shitty and Holster. Bitty is feeding Jack syrupy bites of his pancake from his fork; miraculously no one is fining them. Everyone’s managed to squeeze in to sit together, so Derek grabs a spot next to Ford and Hops. He suffers through everyone’s snickers, and the not-so-good-natured chirping, and everyone rushing to show him the pictures of him and Dex asleep. It’s worth it for the pancakes, Derek reminds himself.

The picture is Chowder’s homescreen now. It’s actually – it’s a good picture. But Derek doesn’t really want to look at it.

He doesn’t mind the teasing, really. The room is bright and warm and loud. He’s missed it this past month, like he misses it every summer: this team, this family.

They’ve been eating for ten minutes and Derek is in the middle of an earnest conversation with Ford about theatre, when Shitty squawks out loudly, _“What?”_

The room goes curiously silent for better eavesdropping, except for Tango, who’s telling Whiskey a story excitedly under his breath. For all intents and purposes, though, this is as quiet as the former and current SMH members in the room can go.

“You’re fucking telling me,” Shitty says, his fork clattering down onto his plate, “that I _own_ the Haus?”

“You made me keep the papers,” Jack says, like it’s obvious, swallowing a bite of the pancake Bitty had fed him. “You don’t remember? Sophomore year, you were really drunk?”

“I could just go to the Haus,” Shitty says in wonder. “Not even visiting any of you. _How could you not tell me this?_ Holy shit. I could just go there and live there, with my couch – ”

Bitty exchanges a meaningful look with the inhabitants of the Haus from 2015 to 2017.

“We’ve got our own place,” Lardo points out.

“And anyways, if you didn’t know you owned the Haus…how have you been paying for it?” asks Ransom.

“Oh, _that’s_ what that is,” Shitty says. “I thought it was just another tax.”

Dex sighs heavily.

“No, but listen,” Shitty goes on. “I can just _go there_ for the summer. _I fucking own the place_!”

“Okay,” Jack says and resumes eating. Everyone else shrugs and goes back to their conversations, except for Tango again, who goes quiet now in confusion.

“I’m going,” insists Shitty.

“We can’t just go there,” Ransom reminds him. “We’re not students anymore.”

“Speak for yourself,” Derek says through a mouthful of food.

“Ugh,” says Dex in disgust, “close your mouth.”

Derek smiles at him widely.

“Ugh,” Dex mutters again, shaking his head.

“It’s my property!” Shitty maintains. “Imagine how sick it’d be, no classes, just staying in the Haus for the summer. We could just drive to Samwell together.”

“Dude, I can see that,” Holster says thoughtfully.

“Oh no,” says Bitty, voice stern. “No, campus would be closed anyway, so that would be breaking and entering, since we’re not even Samwell students anymore.”

“We wouldn’t be entering anywhere but the Haus,” Lardo says. “Not really the campus.”

“Not you too!” Bitty says in despair.

“Come on, Bits,” Holster cajoles, “think about it. May doesn’t have to be the last time you lived at the Haus.”

Bitty crosses his arms. “I said goodbye and everything!”

“Think about Betsy 2.0,” Ransom adds, and Holster awards this idea with a blinding smile. If Derek were Ransom, he’d probably need a minute to compose himself.

The rest of the inhabitants of the dinner table follow the conversation back and forth like a hockey game.

“I’ve got that job at the bakery,” Bitty says, shooting at the goal.

“The owner loves you, she’s been offering you a break forever,” Holster says dismissively. A blocked shot worthy of Chowder.

Bitty wavers. “We’d get in trouble.”

“I can talk to the president,” Jack offers, scoring the winning shot. “His husband is a big fan of my dad. Pretty big Falconers fan too.” “A lot of things make more sense now,” Whiskey remarks.

“Perfect!” Shitty says, clapping Jack on the back. “Zimmerman, saving the day as usual! That’s my man.”

“That’s _my_ man,” Bitty says, and then sighs. “Are we actually doing this?”

“Wait, you’re actually doing this?” Ford asks skeptically.

“YES!” someone screams. Possibly multiple someones.

So they’re actually doing this.

────────────

**JANUARY 2016**

When Derek first set Dex’s ringtone as the Bob the Builder theme song, he really didn’t think too much about it.

He’s now regretting that decision.

The girl kissing him pauses, her fall of shiny dark hair cascading over Derek’s collarbone. Derek is extremely drunk. She is extremely attractive. In one of his classes, he thinks. He definitely knows her name when he’s sober. It may be Priya. He has evaded Nursey Patrol and slipped into someone’s empty bedroom, and now Dex is calling him, with his stupid dumb Bob the Builder theme song.

“There is an explanation for this,” Derek assures her, fumbling around to grab his phone in his pocket, where the screen is lit up with a missed call from _kleendex._ Derek looks at the screen for a moment, before turning his phone off and sliding it back into his pocket. When he looks back up, though, he feels Maybe Priya sliding off his lap. She’s fixing her beautiful hair and doing up the zipper of her dress.

“Bob the Builder turns you off,” Derek says. “Yeah, I get that.”

“It’s not the Bob the Builder,” Maybe Priya says, laughing. “Well. It is a bit. Mostly it’s the way you looked when you saw whoever was calling you. I do _not_ want to get into the middle of that. Sorry, babe. Good luck with it, though. Can you help with the back of this – ”

“Yeah, sure,” Derek says, sitting up and zipping up the top of Maybe Priya’s dress. “But – you think – ha. Noooooooo. No. The person calling me is a friend. Not even that, really. I mean, he is a friend. On good days. For me, at least. Kind of like a frenemy?”

Maybe Priya raises her perfectly plucked eyebrows.

Derek sighs. “Okay. I really like your dress.”

“I really like your nails.” Maybe Priya stands up, brushing off her dress and heading for the door. “See you in class, Derek Nurse,” she calls from over her shoulder before shutting the door.

Derek’s phone starts ringing again.

_Bob the Builder. Can we fix it? Yes we can!_

“No,” Derek tells his phone. “We can’t fix it.”

He sighs again. Sits there for a couple of minutes. Then he gets up.

He’s making his way to the kitchen, maneuvering past a drunk Ransom and Holster singing the Anastasia musical soundtrack and Chowder, who looks extremely busy talking to a group of boys and girls fawning over his every move while Farmer looks on amusedly.

Two guys are making out in the kitchen. Derek breezes past them, tossing out an _excuse me_ , before he looks back and notices that they’ve broken free. Notices who they are.

“Nursey?” Dex says.

 _“Dex?”_ Derek says incredulously.

“Do you know this guy?” Dex’s – Dex’s paramour? Dex’s makeout partner who is a _guy_ – something asks.

“Does he know _me_ ,” Derek repeats. “Who the fuck are _you_?”

The guy holds up his hands, backing away a bit. He’s not even cute, Derek thinks scornfully.

He‘s kind of cute, in a tall, dark, and handsome way. Whatever. Totally not Dex’s type. Because he was a _guy_. “Hey, man, I didn’t mean to – ”

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Nursey?” Dex interrupts, blushing red and looking extremely uncomfortable.

Derek throws up his hands. “With _me_? Are you joking right now? What are you – you were _just_ calling me!”

“Like ten minutes ago!” Dex says. “Where the hell have you been? Chowder said he couldn’t find you!”

“You clearly don’t care where I’ve been!” Derek shouts. He doesn’t know why he’s so angry all of a sudden but he _is_ , and he’s too drunk to deal with why right now. Dex’s hair is all mussed and the top two buttons of his shirt are undone, and it’s _pissing Derek off._

Dex’s eyes narrow on to the scooped collar of Derek’s shirt, the collar Maybe Priya had casually pushed aside before lowering her mouth to his neck. “Nursey,” Dex says in a deadly voice, “is that a hickey?”

“Okay, I’m just gonna go now,” the other guy says, knocking over a beer on the counter in his haste to leave the kitchen. Dex doesn’t even seem to notice.

“I cannot believe your hypocrisy!” Dex says, shaking his head and looking up at the ceiling disbelievingly. “How many drinks have you even had?”

“None of your business,” Derek snaps, irritated. “I don’t need you mon – monop – mom-ing – monitoring me! I take care of myself.”

“Terribly,” Dex says. “You take care of yourself terribly! Come on, let’s go.”

“What?” Derek says, suddenly off-balance as Dex comes over and slings an arm around his shoulder.

“Where’s your coat?”

“Where’s my – what are you _doing_?”

“Taking you home,” says Dex, like it’s obvious. “To your dorm. Hello? Did you want to stay?”

“No, I – I can go home by myself.”

Dex rolls his eyes. “Yeah. Sure. Get your coat.”

It’s sort of hard to argue with Dex when he’s like this, and Derek’s great at arguing with Dex. He gets his coat. It’s sweaty and hot in the Haus, and Ransom and Holster have switched to the Wicked soundtrack despite everyone’s complaints. Derek is incredibly glad when Dex opens the door and they step out into the biting cold air, even though it’s fucking freezing. He starts walking in the approximate direction of his dorm without waiting for Dex.

“Nursey,” Dex calls after him. Derek keeps walking. Dex sighs. “Nursey, you’re going the wrong way.”

Derek halts, tosses his head back to groan, and turns back around. He starts walking next to Dex. The silence between them is frostier than the weather.

“So, um, back there – ” Dex starts.

“I thought you were straight!” Derek bursts out, stopping and crossing his arms. “You’re straight! Like, how drunk are _you_ to be making out with a guy?”

“I literally made out with you, Nursey,” Dex says, “how did you think I was straight?”

“I don’t know!” Derek explodes. “How was I supposed to know? And what, we’re talking about that now? We haven’t talked about that since freshman year! The _day_ it happened, and – wait – you’re...not?”

“Oh my God,” Dex says, almost to himself. “You know, this is my fault, really. Sorry. I’m gay, Nursey! It’s kind of really only a secret in Maine. You’re probably not going to remember this in the morning. I’m probably going to have to do this again.”

“Oh,” Derek says, to himself. “Wow, I’m an idiot. Oh man. Thank you for trusting me with this moment.”

Dex’s mouth quirks up suspiciously like he’s about to laugh.

“Don’t laugh,” protests Derek, “no, Poindexter, come on. I’m sorry! I thought you were having a big gay freakout or something!”

“Yeah, no, I had that in eighth grade,” Dex says.

“So.” Derek clears his throat, scruffs his sneaker on the pavement. He looks down at the snow on the ground. “That guy, back there. That’s a. Thing?”

“What?” says Dex, and when Derek looks back up he looks awkward and embarrassed. “Um. No. I don’t really know him. I don’t know why I did that. The team doesn’t really know yet, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t – ”

“Dude, of course not,” Derek says. “I would never. I won’t say anything.”

“Chowder knows,” Dex adds. “So. Why do you care about that guy?”

“I don’t,” Derek says defensively. “I don’t care. Why do you care about that girl?”

“I don’t,” Dex echoes. “I didn’t even know there was a – oh, the one that gave you. That. Obviously, like. No. Why would I care, I don’t.” His eyes dart down to Derek’s neck.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure – ”

“Really?”

“Why wouldn’t I be – ” Dex cuts himself off and breathes in, out, once. “Why wouldn’t I be sure, Nursey.”

“Well, I don’t know,” Derek muses, and there’s just this voice screaming in his head _He’s not straight._ “You did kiss me.”

“Like a year ago! You’re drunk.”

“Very,” Derek agrees.

Dex sighs again. “Alright. Let’s go. Let’s get you home.”

They walk to Derek’s dorm and knock shoulders every so often because Derek keeps wobbling and it’s cold but he feels alive.

“Where’s your roommate?” Dex asks when Derek manages to open his door after the fifth try with his keys.

“He’s always out,” Derek says, stumbling inside and tossing his keys on the couch. He shoves his jacket off, warm all of a sudden. “That’s why I usually bring people here – ” He sways again, and Dex reaches forward to steady him, but when Derek looks up his shoulders are tense and he looks stony.

“Does that bother you?” asks Derek, tilting his head back. He thinks for a moment that Dex’s eyes fall down to his mouth. He falls back on the couch. “Does that bother you, William J. Poindexter? What’s your middle name, anyway? Why don’t I know your middle name? You know my middle name.”

“You’re really drunk, Nursey,” Dex says, gently taking Derek’s jacket from his hands, brows furrowed.

And all Derek can do is look at him and think _he’s not straight,_ and _please kiss me again._

“I’m gonna get you some water,” Dex tells him. When he comes back, he sits next to Derek’s legs on the couch and gives Derek a glass of water that feels like heaven. When he swallows it down, Dex lifts up from the couch like he’s about to leave.

Derek catches his wrist.

“You’re really drunk,” Dex repeats.

“I also would have got laid tonight if it wasn’t for you,” Derek says.

“What?”

“You and your stupid ringtone,” Derek mutters. “You, like, owe me sex now. I mean, you don’t, because consent, hello, but also to be equal.”

“Ha,” Dex says, not sounding amused but instead sounding choked and very faint. “Very funny.”

Derek holds Dex’s wrist in his hands and he imagines for a moment pulling Dex down, unbuttoning his dumb shirt all the way, then maybe his jeans –

No. _No._ They’re actually doing good right now. Their friendship is kind of working out. They’re doing better than ever in practice. They don’t argue as much. He’s not messing that up for something as _stupid_ as that one adrenaline and anger-fuelled kiss in freshman year.

Derek yawns and Dex gets off the couch. He comes back with a blanket that he drapes over Derek.

“Thank you for telling me,” Derek says, because it seems like it’s important. He thinks Dex says _you’re welcome_ , but then his eyes are drifting closed and someone’s smoothing his hair off his forehead.

 _We messed around until we found the one thing,_ he thinks sleepily, _we said we could never ever live without. I’m not allowed to talk about it, but I gotta tell you._

“Thanks, _habibi_ ,” Derek murmurs, and his eyes fall all the way shut.

────────────

**JUNE 2017 (NOW)**

“If Holster shouts loser at me one more time, I will do something drastic,” Derek says, dramatically flopping down next to Dex on Bitty and Jack’s couch.

Dex looks up from his phone. “Oh, hi. You haven’t left yet? I thought you said you’d need to go back before you joined everyone.”

“Yeah, it’s Eid in like a week,” says Derek.

“The celebration,” Dex clarifies, “after fasting.”

“Yeah,” Derek says, trying not to smile. It’s just kind of adorable how hard Dex is trying to get everything right. “I’m always with my family for that when I can be. But we kind of slept the morning away, and then there was a lot of yelling at breakfast. I’ll wait till tomorrow.”

He may be procrastinating a bit. He really hates driving.

“C’s going back to California for a week and then joining everyone,” Derek says. “He says Samwell’s president gave the all-clear to Jack about Shitty’s terrible idea, as long as we pay for any damages that may be caused to campus and are aware that security cameras still exist. You know, I’ve _never_ met that dude.”

“Pretty sure Jack’s the only one who has.”

“What about you?” asks Derek, totally casual.

“Well, I’m not leaving today,” Dex says. “You’re right, it’s too late now. And I still think this is a crazy plan.”

“It’ll be funnnn,” Derek says. _I really want you to be there,_ he wants to say. It’s not like it won’t be fun without Dex there. It’ll be all his favorite people in one place, but that’s not exactly complete without Dex there.

“Yeah,” says Dex. “Also potentially harmful and dangerous for the Samwell campus, the Haus, its inhabitants, our school careers, and the already awful reputation of our team.”

Derek laughs. “Probably.”

“If we’re allowed, then I don’t know,” Dex says. “Next year is our last year. Might as well. It would make sense to get our stuff and stay until August when I’d go back anyway. And I _know_ Chowder’s going to give me his puppy dog eyes. I can’t resist those.”

Derek stretches his arms. “Don’t you have to work, though?”

“I’ll probably be okay,” Dex says. His eyes flicker down to Derek’s shirt where it’s ridden up and Derek reaches to hastily pull it down. “I have to return the car, though. No way can I just leave it at the Haus for the rest of the summer waiting for me.”

“Everyone’s gonna carpool. I’ll drive you,” Derek offers.

Dex lets out a stifled laugh and a groan. “This again? You have to go back to New York first, remember.”

“Oh yeah,” Derek remembers.

“Dumbass,” Dex says, and Derek shoves his shoulder.

“If Chowder drove us we could have a Frogs road-trip. Dude, that would be so sick.”

“Yeah, it would,” Dex says. At this moment Holster passes by and yell _LOSERS_ at them. Derek and Dex exchange a look.

Fate works in funny ways. If Holster hadn’t chosen to go past the living room, or if he hadn’t said anything, Dex wouldn’t have said what he said next. And Derek would have had a perfectly normal summer pining from afar, possibly a senior year doing that, too.

That’s not what happens.

“We didn’t even lose!” Derek shouts after Holster. “We never admitted defeat! And it was one point!”

“I have a really bad idea,” Dex says.

“I love really bad ideas,” Derek says.

“Do you remember what Holster said last night? That he and Ransom were better d-men because they’re closer. Like, they’ve gone to visit each other’s families during major holidays.”

 _Yeah, that was right before you kissed me_ , Derek thinks.

“And I know they have,” Dex goes on, his brows drawing together in a picture of intense concentration like when he’s working on coding. “We all know that. So the only way to prove we’re better than them is to do the stuff that they’ve done.”

Derek raises his eyebrows.

“Like, visit each other’s families during major holidays?” Dex elaborates, raising his eyebrows back.

Derek stares at him.

“If you don’t want to, obviously, I get that,” Dex says hurriedly. “It’s just, I need to go back to Maine, and you need to go back to New York. If we went to my house first, in seperate cars, and I could leave mine behind so we’d drive to yours in your car, then to Samwell in…”

“That’s,” Derek starts. He thinks about the mechanics of being in a small space with Dex for a numerous amount of hours. He thinks about his parents meeting Dex. It sounds terrifying and incredible at the same time.

Whatever he feels about Dex, Dex is his best friend first. And he wants to prove it.

Dex deflates after Derek still hasn’t said anything. “No, I get it, dude, sorry.”

Derek punches him in the shoulder. “Shut up. That’s a good idea! It’ll shut Ransom and Holster up. We could take pictures to document our journey and everything.”

Dex’s shoulders relax a fraction. “Yeah? You want to meet my family, Nurse?”

“Why not? I’ve already met your mother and sisters and they love me,” Derek says, grinning at him. His grin fades after a moment. “Just as long as there’s not going to be any – ”

“Oh, yeah, of course.” Dex’s expression goes serious and quiet. “Look, I promise no one is going to say any shit to your face. You’d be a guest. I swear, Nurse, if anyone tried anything, I’d kill them. I’ll make sure they don’t. And they’re not – I know what it must have seemed like, me in freshman year and everything. But it’s really not what you expect – ”

“Chill, dude,” Derek says. “I trust you.”

Dex opens his mouth, and shuts it. “Cool. Yeah. Um. Are you sure you’re okay with me meeting your family?”

Derek winces internally thinking about it, but he waves Dex off. “So long as you’re okay with spending Eid with us.”

“ _I’m_ okay with that,” Dex says. “It sounds really – you’re good with that? Really? If I would be intruding, then you should tell me and I’ll – ”

“You wouldn’t be _intruding_ ,” says Derek, laughing.

“Nursey, my mother would kill me if I intruded on a private family affair – ”

“You would not,” Derek says. “Chill. It would be – nice.”

“Okay,” says Dex, quieter.

“It’s also really a _lot_ ,” Derek adds. “Like a _lot._ There’s a lot of stuff we have to do, and we usually have lunch with my ammi’s family. Are you sure you’re up for that?”

“If you are.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” Dex says again. “So we’re doing this.”

“Ransom and Holster won’t know what fucking hit them,” Derek says, miming his fist slamming into his other hand.

Dex shakes his head. “No, don’t…do that.”

“No?” Derek looks down at his hands. “That’s what it’ll feel like, Dex.”

“No,” Dex says, but he’s laughing.

 _This is a good idea,_ Derek thinks, watching his eyes crinkle at the corners. Definitely, one hundred percent a good idea, and not immature or ridiculous in the slightest.

The next morning, while panicking in his car, parked in a nearby gas station, he’s rethinking this idea.

Really, though, if he’s thinking about it, it’s not like he wouldn’t be panicking even if he hadn’t agreed to Dex’s plans. He’s just – not good with driving, especially in the current political landscape. It makes him anxious. He’s not sure whether it’s better or worse that Dex is here.

He watches Dex finish filling up gas against a blue blue sky and relentless sunshine, in his plaid shirt like some sort of hot construction worker. Not that construction workers are particularly known for filling up gas, so he doesn’t know why that’s the comparison that comes into his head, but it’s not like his brain is functioning properly right now, so.

Dex disappears into the convenience store. Derek had told him he’d pay for gas and Dex could pay for snacks. Three years and he’s learned how to pick his battles with Dex and money. Three years and Dex has gotten over his pride, mostly.

He rests his head against the steering wheel and tries to breathe. He thinks about his mama whispering to him before he left, telling him to be careful, to drive slowly.

Nothing’s going to happen to him. Probably. Possibly. Maybe.

God, he hates driving. He doesn’t know how he even passed his fucking driver’s test.

Well, he did fail it twice first.

Dex comes out of the store with a plastic bag. He’s moving in Derek’s direction, which is good. Probably possibly maybe.

Likely, Derek thinks, watching Dex rap his knuckles on Derek’s window. He rolls down his window. He thinks about pretending everything’s chill, but Dex figures it out in a second.

“What’s wrong?” Dex says. Something in Derek’s expression must betray him, because Dex leans in closer and says, “Open the passenger door, Nursey.”

Derek opens the door. Dex gets in. They sit in the car in silence for a few beats.

“Tell me,” Dex says softly.

Derek sighs. “It’s really no big deal, man. I just don’t like driving.”

“Don’t like – ” Dex presses one hand to his forehead. “We’re about to drive for _hours_ , Nursey, and then we’ll be driving again, and then again! Why would you not tell me?”

“Because I’m handling it!” Derek says.

“Terribly!” Dex says. “You’re handling it terribly!” He sighs. “What do you need me to do?”

He makes it sound so simple. “Nothing,” says Derek, “I – nothing, God, I just. I’m scared of getting pulled over by the police, but it’s not just that. Driving makes me anxious.”

“How did you drive to Bitty and Jack’s place?” Dex asks.

Derek lets his head fall back against his seat. “I don’t know. My moms took turns calling me and talking to me. I told them I’d be fine because I didn’t want them to drive me when they were fasting, but they called me. They just talked. They kept the phone on. Then Chowder called me when I was close to Providence. It helped.”

“You told your moms you’d be fine when you wouldn’t be fine,” Dex says.

“Basically,” Derek says.

Dex sighs again. He opens his shopping bag and takes out a bottle of water, a bag of chips, and a chocolate bar, and hands them to Derek.

“Sweet, Twix,” Derek says. “Thanks, dude. You really didn’t have to, though.” He sets the items down on the console between them. When he’s done, Dex reaches out to grab his hand. Derek’s next words turn to dust in his mouth. He looks down at their intertwined fingers.

“Are you okay to keep going?” Dex asks earnestly.

“We have two cars,” says Derek, looking up with a half-smile. “Unless you want to leave mine here, I kind of have to keep going.”

“Nursey,” Dex says, in that _do not fuck with me right now Nurse_ tone that Derek is oh-so familiar with. “If you don’t want to keep going, I’ll call a fucking tow truck or I’ll call out my brother to drive this car home. You don’t have to do anything.”

Derek holds his gaze. “Yeah,” he says, voice hoarse. “I can keep going. If you call me. Every once in a while. While we’re driving.”

“I was already going to do that, idiot, you didn’t have to tell me,” Dex says, and smiles at him. He lets go of their clasped hands. It feels like a loss in more ways than one.

“I feel better,” Derek tells him, all in a rush, because it just seems important. It’s true. He feels safe.

Dex opens the door. “Drink your water,” he says before he exits the car.

“Aye, aye, captain,” Derek calls after him.

Dex gives him the finger without turning around.

Derek smiles to himself. He keeps going.

Dex calls him moments after they’re on the road. He doesn’t bother with a hello. They never have, calling each other. First because it was so strange to be talking to each other on purpose, miles away with no Chowder as mediator, and later because they’d just gotten used to it.

“What do you want me to talk about?” Dex’s voice says through the bluetooth in Derek’s car.

“Anything,” Derek says. “Tell me about your family. If I’m going to meet them I should know.”

A pause. “Okay,” Dex says, his voice like an anchor, a way for Derek to keep steady. “My family. My dad’s not big on communication. He’s kind of casually homophobic, but I know I could tell him anything and he’d listen. He’s a good cook. My mom, she’ll invite you to dinner as soon as you show up. She’s always looking out for everyone. My siblings – ”

“Michael, Haley, Brianna, and Jordan,” Derek says automatically.

“Yeah,” Dex says, sounding a bit surprised. “Michael’s the oldest. Kind of a dick, but he tries. He’s a lot better than before. He’s married now, so he doesn’t live at home. Haley and I are a couple of years apart. You met her, Brianna, and my mom before. She’s really smart, kind of like you.” Derek can hear the smile in his voice. “She always thinks she has to take care of me, but when she moved out, I got used to taking care of everyone else. Brianna’s in eighth grade, and she acts grown-up, but she always hugs me when I come home. Jordan’s only in kindergarten, and she’s a little weird, but she’s adorable. She’s the only other one with red hair. I don’t have a favorite, but if I did, she’d probably be mine. Then there’s all my cousins, there’s millions of them…”

The sound of his voice carries Derek all the way to Maine.

────────────

Even when Derek hates Dex, freshman year or post-Dib Flip or after Dex moves out, he can’t actually hate Dex.

First it’s just because they have to be able to work together, and it’s not even a problem, really. They click on the ice easily. Then it’s just that Chowder is friends with Dex, and Chowder is in the top five of people whose judgement Derek trusts without question (the others being his parents and Lardo). Chowder ties them both together. They don’t really have a choice other than to end up hanging out together. They’re always bickering, and it takes Derek a while to realize that he actually likes it. He likes the chirping and teasing and the laughter. Then it’s just –

The thing is that Dex is actually a good person.

────────────

**JUNE 2017 (NOW)**

“So what exactly are you going to tell your parents?” Derek asks, rocking back and forth anxiously on his heels, and peering at the Poindexters’ door. The paint is chipped, and there’s something written in faded crayon to the side.

Dex shrugs, his hands in his pockets. “That’s easy. I called my mom to ask her about staying at the Haus. I’ll just tell her I’ve come to drop off the car and that you’re going to drive me to Samwell. She’ll invite you to stay the night, and we’ll decline but end up compromising on staying for dinner and leaving in the morning anyway. You can’t argue with her.”

“You’re not nervous?”

“Not really,” Dex says, but his hands twisting in the pockets of his jeans tell a different story. He turns to look at Derek, a wry twist to his mouth. “You don’t need to be, either. Just don’t trust anything anyone tells you about me. Haley’s stories are definitely false.”

“Oh really,” Derek says, grinning. “Now I’m more excited than nervous.”

“Okay, so before we ring the doorbell, quick crash course,” Dex tells him. “My dad’s still at work, so we’ll be roped into feeling guilty if we don’t stay until he comes back. Michael and his wife might be invited for dinner. Haley’s home for the summer. Only two of my aunts and uncles are currently living here, so only a few of my cousins should be here, but some of them might have come over to play with Jordan and Brianna. I hope to God no one invites Grandma, but if they do, she’ll be a little racist but eventually she’ll love you. By eventually I mean really quickly.”

“Mm-hm,” Derek says.

Dex looks at the door. “This is probably not the best idea.”

“Oh, don’t wimp out on me now, Poindexter,” Derek says, and rings the doorbell.

“I’m sorry in advance,” Dex mutters.

The door swings open to reveal a tiny girl who lets out an excited squeal and leaps into Dex’s waiting arms. “Will!” she shouts, giggling as Dex twirls her around in his arms. She’s got a gap-toothed little smile, denim overalls over top a purple shirt, and Dex’s hair, so it must be Jordan. She really is adorable.

Derek watches and thinks he may be melting a little, on the spot, into a little puddle.

Dex sets Jordan down. She squints at Derek and says, “Will, who’s this?”

“This is my friend. Be nice and say hello, bug,” Dex says, and then, a bit awkwardly, “His name is Derek.”

Derek can relate. He can’t imagine calling Dex _Will._

Jordan eyes him warily and extends out her hand. “Hello.”

“Hi,” Derek says seriously, bending down a bit and shaking her (very sticky) hand. “I like your overalls.”

“I love these overalls!” Jordan says delightedly. “You should get some too if you like them.”

Derek pretends to think about it. “I don’t think they’d suit me that well.”

“I think they’d really suit you,” Jordan tells him. “And I’m really great at fashion, Will always says so.”

“I can tell,” Derek says, trying not to smile. “Okay. I’ll think about it. I’ll send you a picture if I get some. Then we can match.”

“Yay,” Jordan says.

While he’s been talking to Jordan, a woman he recognizes from Family Weekend and a couple of games as Dex’s mother has come up from behind Jordan and is talking to Dex, but turns to Derek once she sees he and Jordan are finished.

“Hi, Mrs. Poindexter,” Derek says, smiling and holding out his hand. “It’s lovely to see you again. Is that a new haircut?”

Dex rolls his eyes.

“Oh, there’s no need for any of that,” Mrs. Poindexter says, tossing aside his hand and pulling him in for a hug. Derek is so startled he almost forgets to hug her back, and then his eyes start pricking. He blinks rapidly. “I told you before to call me Katie.”

“I really could never do that,” Derek says.

“How’re Amina and Laila?” Mrs. Poindexter asks, releasing him with a pat on his back. Derek feels a little overwhelmed. “How’re you? And Mr. Nurse?”

“All doing well, thanks,” Derek says. “How’s the new job?”

“How do you even know about that?” Dex interrupts. “Are you Facebook friends with my mom, Nurse?”

Derek turns to shoot back _No one even uses Facebook anymore, Poindexter, how old are you_ , but Dex is holding Jordan by the hip, and suddenly words are absolutely escaping Derek. Words, his one true companion and the only things he can rely on. Dex is even taking words from him. So he fakes a coughing fit, while the Poindexters watch on, bemused. “Yeah,” he says when he’s finished.

Dex raises his eyebrows. “I thought you weren’t into Facebook anymore.”

Before Derek can formulate a weak response, Dex’s mom slaps Dex lightly on the arm and says, “Hush and leave the poor boy alone. Come inside.”

“Mom, we really can’t stay,” Dex says. “We have a schedule to follow, I told you, remember? I just came to drop off the car.”

Mrs. Poindexter purses her lips. “Will, your dad hasn’t even done home yet, and you have a guest! I insist. Come inside at least to say hello to everyone. Let me get your coat, Derek, dear.”

 _Told you,_ Dex mouths at Derek behind his mother’s back, looking resigned.

Just like Dex had said, they both get conned into staying until Dex’s dad comes back. Derek meets Haley again, who’s wearing her brown hair in a fetching braided bun and is constantly looking between Derek and her brother in a disturbingly knowing manner. They follow each other on Instagram, so they’re pretty caught up already, which for some reason exasperates Dex (“Are you friends with all my family members?”). He meets Brianna again too; she’s a lot grumpier and glued to her phone than he remembers, but she gives Dex an enormous hug when she sees him and keeps blushing in front of Derek. It’s a lot of shaking hands with aunts and uncles and noticing that they have Dex’s nose or eyes. Derek had made numerous jokes in poor taste about Weasleys in their frog year, but there are only actually a few redheads.

Dex’s cousins are alternately too cool or old to care about Derek, or young enough to pull him outside and ask him to play with them. Obviously, the only answer to that question is yes. So when Dex gets pulled aside to help with chores and Derek is forbidden from assisting, he follows Dex’s cousins and Jordan into Mrs. Poindexter’s garden and lets them braid his hair.

“You’re a lot prettier than Will is,” one of the girls tells him. She has freckles almost as cute as Dex’s and she’s biting her lip with concentration as she makes another braid. There’s around seven of them including Jordan, five girls and two boys, and Derek has forgotten all of their names immediately, but they are adorable.

 _It’s not what you expect,_ Dex had said, and Derek can’t say he’s wrong. He doesn’t know what he’d expected, but this isn’t it.

“You know, I’ve been saying that this whole time,” Derek says solemnly.

“Derek!” Jordan says. “Adam and I made you a flower crown.”

“Thank you so much,” Derek says and tries not to cry.

He’s chill.

This is how Dex finds him twenty minutes later, sitting in the grass surrounded by laughing children and sunshine, one little boy in his lap and Jordan with her arms around her neck. He has a misshapen, crooked flower crown on his head and a million braids worn into his hair. It is prime chirping material, but when Derek looks up at him, Dex isn’t laughing at him. He has a strange expression on his face.

“They cornered me,” says Derek dramatically, and Dex cracks a smile while the kids titter again.

“It suits you,” Dex says.

Derek rolls his eyes. “Very funny, Dex.”

“Who’s Dex?” Jordan asks, unconsciously tightening her hold on Derek’s neck.

“J, you’re strangling me a bit,” Derek chokes out.

“Bug, let go of him!” Dex says, alarmed.

“Sorry!” Jordan says, scrambling off of him and looking sheepish. “Sorry, Derek.”

Derek waves her off. “It’s okay. You have a good grip. Dex is a hockey nickname for your brother.”

“Can I have a hockey nickname?”

“Alright, go eat first,” Dex says. “Aunt Grace made ice cream.”

That gets all the kids up and running back inside instantly, while Dex crouches down to sit cross-legged next to Derek on the grass. Derek kind of wants to run back inside too. He loves ice cream.

This must be what peace feels like, Derek thinks, listening to the clucking of birds and Dex’s quiet breathing next to him.

“They like you,” Dex says finally.

“I like them back,” Derek says. He adds, “They’re so cute. How are you related to them?”

“Shut up, Nurse,” Dex says, laughing.

“I’m keeping the flower crown.”

“I won’t chirp you about it if you let me have a picture.”

“Okay,” Derek says. He hops up and brushes grass stains off his jeans. “Send it to Ransom and Holster. Hashtag having a super great time with my super great d-man.”

“I am never writing that,” Dex says flatly.

“Fine, I already sent the groupchat one anyways,” says Derek. He takes out his phone and reads aloud, “ ‘Who’s the best d-men pair now? At the Poindexters’ chilling with Dex’s relatives, about to go drive to New York with Dex and spend Eid with him. In your face!’ ”

“That’s good,” Dex admits.

“You should see the responses, really. Chowder says he wishes he were here, and Lardo says I look great, which is true.” Derek holds out a hand to help Dex up, and savours the brief moment in which Dex’s hand clasps his, before he lets go and they go back inside.

They spend the few hours before dinner walking around Dex’s favorite old spots as a kid: the bakery where Mrs. Evans always gave him free croissants, his old and Jordan’s current elementary school, the parks he’d visit after school. Dex buys them lobster rolls and Derek very pointedly does not laugh. Well, he lasts a solid five minutes until he cracks and bursts into laughter. They head back before the sun sets to eat the remains of Aunt Grace’s ice cream in the kitchen secretly, which Dex had saved for them in one bowl in the freezer, while Dex’s mom is doing the laundry. When she’s finished, she calls Dex over and Haley beckons Derek over to look at baby pictures on the living room sofa.

It’s the most endearing thing Derek’s ever seen. It’s a lot of boring-looking fishing trips and numerous birthdays, sure, but it also has a baby ginger William J. Poindexter, with his tiny hands and chubby cheeks. Then as Haley keeps flipping through the book, there’s a gawky teenage Dex, at his first prom and his high school graduation, which is incredibly embarrassing but also the best thing Derek’s ever seen. Dex at hockey games, with his siblings at family barbecues, holding a baby Jordan and looking so tender that if Haley weren’t sitting with Derek, he’d need to have a moment. If he could have shown these pictures to freshman Derek, he’s certain the events of that year would have turned out differently.

“Aw, go back to the one where he’s holding a little wrench for the first time,” Derek says.

“Nah, don’t want to risk it.” Haley looks around suspiciously and closes the book. She hesitates. “Hey. Nurse. You care about my brother, right?”

“Right,” Derek says, startled.

“He’s always looking after everyone,” Haley says, “but it was my job to look after him first. So you gotta know, this isn’t personal. I like you a lot, way more than any of the other goons he’s dated before. I know he can be a little insensitive, and I know he’s hurt you before. I know you’ve hurt each other before. But be careful with him, or you’ll have me to answer to.”

“Ahahaaaa,” Derek says, “I think there’s been a miscommunication somewhere here!” “Gotta go,” Haley says, leaping up off the couch. “Mom’s probably done trying to convince Dex to let her invite Grandma over.”

Derek stares helplessly at her back as she leaves. He feels someone plop down next to him a few minutes later, and looks up to see Dex.

“Did Haley show you my baby pictures?” Dex asks warily.

“No?” Derek says weakly, and Dex stares at him with Haley’s suspicious look for a few more moments before shrugging.

“I don’t understand why my mom is trying to invite over every member of my extended family to this dinner,” he complains. “At least Aunt Claire and Uncle Jacob and most of the cousins left. We wouldn’t even have been able to all fit at the dinner table. My mom even tried to tell me she’d be okay with not inviting Grandma as long as you came to Maine again to meet her! Sorry, it’s ridiculous and I’ve got no idea what’s going on.”

Derek opens his mouth to say _About that_ , but then the doorbell rings. Dex’s father must be back. Oh, Jesus.

Dex stands up, so Derek has to follow him out of the living room to where Dex’s mother has opened the door.

Dex’s father is tall and has greying brown hair and he looks really scary. Derek knows Dex’s relationship with his father is a lot more strained than his relationship with his mother. Usually he’s amazing with parents as long as they’re not racist or homophobic, but he’s honestly quaking in his boots right now. He’s not actually wearing boots right now, but it’s a metaphor, so whatever.

Dex hovers at his side. Derek braces himself and offers his hand out to Dex’s dad. “Hi Mr. Poindexter, it’s so nice to – ”

He gets halfway through his sentence when Dex’s dad pulls him in for a brief, gruff hug. Derek meets Dex’s eyes and mouths _what is happening_. Dex gives him an exaggerated shrug, looking absolutely baffled. Mr. Poindexter lets Derek go, and nods at him.

“So nice to finally meet you,” Derek finishes lamely. “Sir.”

“Good to meet you too,” Mr. Poindexter says. “Derek, right?” He looks at his wife for confirmation. “Derek. Welcome to our home.”

Derek thinks he manages to smile.

Then Dex’s brother Michael comes over for dinner with his wife and makes his way to Derek to say awkwardly that he’s happy for both of them. There’s no time to tell Dex after that either, because everyone’s preparing for dinner, and Derek is determined to help. Then the dishes are being set on the table and everyone has already sat down to eat, Dex and Haley on either side of Derek. Then people are starting to eat, and Derek wants to eat too because for white people food it looks delicious, and Dex had told him he’d asked his mom to make vegetarian dishes without asking. Then everyone is asking how Derek is doing in school, how the team is, congratulating them on winning the championship, amidst loud pratter and laughter from the kids. He doesn’t dare take out his phone or attempt to text Dex without looking, and Haley will hear anything he says.

Somehow the entire dinner passes by without Derek managing to communicate to Dex that his entire family is under the impression that they’re dating.

He provides answers to the questions that Dex’s family asks him instead, and talks about how delicious the food is. He’s going crazy watching everyone’s knowing looks every time Dex’s elbow so much as grazes his when they both reach for the water jug at the same time.

It’s only when Dex stands up and says he’ll clear the dinner plates to make room for dessert that Derek can follow suit and say he’ll help, so he can tell Dex. And even that happens with a disturbing amount of Poindexters winking.

In the kitchen, Derek waits until he hears the chatter from the dining room start up again and sets the plates down on the counter. He blurts out urgently, “Your family thinks we’re dating.”

“I know!” Dex says.

“Exactly! Wait, what?”

Dex starts aggressively stacking the plates in the sink. “I asked you to pass the salt and Uncle Roy raised his eyebrows at me. My dad asked _how we met._ All the really problematic relatives aren’t here, but everyone else is. Everyone has told me they support me at least twice, even Jordan. Even _Michael_.” He sighs. “I’m sorry. I don’t know where they got that idea. I’ve only come out to Haley. I’ll tell them all they’re, you know, mistaken.”

Derek is going insane. “I can survive one day pretending to be your boyfriend.”

Dex snorts.

“Anyway, that’s...good right?” Derek ventures. “Not the part where they think I’m your boyfriend – ” He stumbles over the word. “But that they’re okay with it.”

Dex looks down at the dishes. “Yeah, it’s – it’s really – I never thought they would – ”

“Hey,” Derek says and comes over to him to put a hand on his shoulder.

Dex lets out a strangled laugh. “Nursey, my family all thinks we’re making out right now.”

“Well, you’re lucky. I’m a real catch, you know,” Derek says, and is rewarded by Dex’s shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter. “It’s okay to feel complicated about it. Did you want to tell them yourself?”

“No. I don’t know. I just haven’t told any of them except Haley,” Dex says. “Ever. It wasn’t exactly an accepting environment to grow up in. I never thought I would tell them until I – found someone. The fact that they’re all here, that _Grandma_ wanted to come – I don’t know what to say.”

“Just hug them,” Derek says. “Hugs contain a huge variety of emotions.”

Dex laughs again. It only sounds a little like a sob. “You give terrible advice, Nursey.”

“Oh, come on.”

“I mean it. I’d give you a solid 4/10.”

“Better than 0,” Derek says philosophically, slinging an arm over Dex’s shoulder and dragging him over to the doorway. “Time to face the music, bro.”

“Right,” Dex says. “How to face my relatives when they all think I’ve been kissing you in the kitchen?”

 _Please kiss me in the kitchen_ , Derek thinks with a sudden burst of longing so strong he wants to sit down. “I’m happy for you,” he says.

“Yeah,” Dex says. “Me too.”

They finish dinner off pretty strong, Derek thinks. No slipping into uncontrollable laughter when anyone refers to them as a couple and no bursts of emotion over familial support either. Dessert is delicious, though it can’t rival Bitty’s pie. After dinner, though, when all the kids and mostly everyone has gone upstairs, Dex mentions getting out a sleeping bag for Derek, and his parents are not on board.

“I hope you don’t think Derek is sleeping in your room, dear,” Mrs. Poindexter says severely. “I trust you both, but you know that won’t be happening under my roof.”

“ _Mom_ ,” Dex says, turning bright red. “Oh my God. Nothing would happen.”

“Derek can take the guest room,” Dex’s dad says, in a tone that brokers no arguments.

Derek doesn’t try and argue, but he does try not to laugh in a mostly failed attempt. He takes the guest room, but stays up texting Dex anyway. It takes him a while to fall asleep even after Dex has told him to a million times.

Before dinner he’d taken off his flower crown carefully and tucked it inside his hockey bag, retrieved from the car. He takes it out to look at it, brush his fingers over the wilted edges.

He keeps thinking about driving to New York with Dex, Dex meeting his family. He should be nervous, and he is, but he’s excited most of all. He can show Dex everything he’d had to explore on his own in the summer.

 _I can show you the worlddd_ , Derek thinks. He falls asleep with A Whole New World stuck in his head – not the Aladdin version, but the version Holster and Ransom sang loudly at kegsters and breakfast – and with his phone, Dex’s last text still on the screen, clutched in his hand.

_Good night, Nursey, for the last fucking time._

────────────

**APRIL 2017**

It’s a fairly new development, he and Dex heading over to Annie’s for coffee on Thursdays, but Derek thinks it’s going pretty well. Just not at the moment.

Or maybe it is. Depends on your perspective.

They haven’t even made it off campus yet.

Like it usually goes with the both of them, he’s not sure _what_ they’re arguing about. It’s not about politics or Derek’s vacation plans or Dex’s white privilege. They got over arguing over those things in sophomore year. Dex has admitted he’s wrong and Derek’s stopped provoking him as much. No, Derek thinks it started out with Dex making fun of Derek’s coffee order and Derek making fun of Dex’s taste in scones, and _that_ had started when Derek had mentioned how badly he’d been craving caffeine when he met up with Dex after his class. Now Dex is arguing insistently that there’s no such thing as a birthday month.

“I’m just saying,” Dex says, as they cross Lake Quad over to The Beach and walk against its shore, “that it’s called a birth _day_. Not a birth _month_.”

“And _I’m_ just saying,” Derek insists, “that I’ve had tons of birthday months, so you’re wrong.”

“Of course _you’ve_ had tons of birthday months before,” Dex says. He’s wearing Derek’s green hat and Derek is pretending he hasn’t noticed. He’s so busy pretending he hasn’t noticed that he’s looking cast-long at Dex’s profile for so long that he misses the reason Dex says, “Are you _kidding_ me.”

Derek looks in front of him too late to see a boy and girl holding a box of chocolates in their hands.

The girl looks at Dex like he’s incredibly rude and says, “Hi, Nursey.”

“Hi,” Derek returns. He has no idea who these people are.

“These are for you,” she says, holding out her box and nudging the boy, who looks a bit pale.

“Oh, chill,” Derek says, taking the box and smiling. “Thanks, dudes. That’s really nice of you.”

“You’re welcome,” the boy says, and then looks impressed at his own daring.

“Hey, Nursey,” the girl starts.

“Oh my God, _yes_ , that’s him in the brochure, yes, he’s single, and _no_ , he’s not busy,” Dex says. “Now scram.”

“That was rude,” Derek says, waving apologetically to the girl and boy as they flee.

“That was the third time this has happened!” Dex says.

“Someone’s jealous,” Derek sings. “You want a chocolate?”

“No, I’m not jealous, and I don’t want a chocolate, Nursey, I want to know why people keep coming up to you to randomly give you things.”

Derek shrugs, opening the box of chocolates to grab a respectable three chocolates. He shoves his bag off his shoulder to tuck the box inside. “That just happens sometimes.”

 _“Why?”_ Dex explodes. “Why are you _like this_? Why were you born on Valentine’s Day? Why do butterflies land on your shoulders? And why are there always leaves in your hair?”

“I don’t know!” Derek says through a mouthful of chocolate, gesturing with his hands helplessly. “They just appear!”

“They appear because you’re always sitting in leaf piles!”

“It’s just a nice place to sit!”

“No, it’s _not_!”

“I think you need to cool off, Poindexter.”

Dex regards him for a moment with a strange, wicked look in his eyes. Derek feels unsettled.

“You know what, Nurse?” Dex says. “I think _you_ need to cool off.”

“What?” Derek says.

Dex steps closer to him. Unnerved, Derek steps back.

Dex takes another step closer.

Derek takes another step back.

“Give me your bag,” Dex says.

“I’m not giving you my bag!” Derek argues, except then his bag slip out of his hands and falls onto the ground. Derek looks down. “Dammit!”

“I think you really need to _chill_ ,” Dex says.

Derek takes another cautionary step back. He wobbles. Dex reaches out with one arm, and pushes him into The Pond.

Derek surfaces from the water gasping and staring at Dex, who is laughing hysterically, with his mouth open. Derek’s clothes are drenched, his hair is ruined, and he needs vengeance.

“Very funny!” he shouts, splashing water at Dex and pushing his hair out of his eyes. “Hilarious! Are you fucking _kidding_ me? William fucking J. Poindexter!”

Dex is laughing so hard he’s clutching his stomach. Derek hates himself for feeling his anger ebb away at the open look on Dex’s face, the way his eyes have crinkled at the edges, the sound of his laughter.

There’s still only one thing to do. Derek steels himself, grabs hold of Dex’s sleeve, and pulls him into the water.

“Nursey!” Dex says, splashing water at him and taking off his hat (Derek’s hat) to wring water out of it.

“This is what you deserve!” Derek yells, trying not to laugh. “I haven’t even had my coffee yet! It’s fucking cold in here!”

“I told you to leave behind your bag so your stuff wouldn’t get wet!” Dex protests. “I was being considerate. Unlike you, you just pulled me in here – ”

“You don’t _have_ a bag, you left your stuff at the Haus, and you pulled me in here first!” Derek says. “Idiot!” He can’t help it. He starts laughing. “Why did you do that! What if I couldn’t swim?”

“I thought you needed to be taught a lesson,” Dex says, grinning. “I know you can swim, you dick. You had swimming lessons and ballet lessons and – ”

“Shut up,” Derek says, rolling his eyes.

“What’s your fucking plan now, Nurse?” Dex says. “I would have gotten you a towel after. Now we’re both soaking wet. I don’t think they’ll even let us into Annie’s like this.”

“Shut up,” Derek says again, and splashes water at him. Dex splashes water right back into his face, and Derek blinks to get it out of his eyes. “Is this even sanitary?” he wonders.

“Obviously it’s not sanitary!” Dex says, laughing. “Oh my God. We’re in The fucking Pond.”

“We should get out.”

“We really should.”

He swims closer to Derek instead, right in front of him, and for a moment Derek holds his breath in the cool water thinking Dex will – Dex picks something gently out of Derek’s hair instead.

It’s a leaf.

“Nursey,” Dex says. “How is there a leaf in your hair?”

That sets them both off again, until they’re laughing so hard they’re clutching each other’s shoulders and Dex keeps saying, “It’s April, it’s _April_!”

“The fucking hockey team again,” someone says to their friend, walking by The Pond.

They don’t go to Annie’s that day. They’re shivering when they get out of the water, so they run all the way back to The Haus. When Bitty sees them, he almost drops a pie, and rushes to get them towels, yelling at them to stop dripping on his mat.

“This is your fault,” Derek says to Dex.

“Alright,” Dex relents. “Maybe it was my fault a little bit.”

“A _little_ bit?” Derek repeats indignantly, and Dex laughs again.

He could never get tired of the sound.

────────────

**JUNE 2017 (NOW)**

Derek regrets staying up late texting Dex when he’s woken up in the morning too early by the sweet sounds of Missy Elliot’s Lose Control (his alarm, mostly a way to irritate Dex back when they were living together. He never got around to changing it back.) and someone pounding on his door. No one else in the house would be as rude, so he figures it’s probably Dex.

A half hour later, he and Dex have finished breakfast courtesy of Mrs. Poindexter, they’re armed with enough food and snacks all stuffed in a grocery bag from the Poindexters’ pantry and kitchen to feed an army or the entire SMH team, Dex’s belongings are packed in Derek’s trunk, and they’re standing in front of Derek’s car trying to convince Jordan to let go of Derek’s leg.

“This is really hurtful,” Dex remarks, one hand over his eyes to cover the bright light of the morning sun.

“I love you lots lots lots, but I know you’re going to come back,” Jordan says, her voice muffled by Derek’s jeans. “Will Derek come back?”

“Bug, he doesn’t need to come back,” Dex says. “That’s a lot to ask of someone.”

“Jordan,” Mrs. Poindexter says warningly from where she stands next to her husband. They’d both gotten up to see Dex and Derek off, and so had Haley and Brianna, though Haley was falling asleep on Brianna’s shoulder and Brianna was busily texting someone.

“I’ll come back,” Derek says.

“Nursey,” Dex says in a low voice.

Derek smiles at him. “I have to meet your grandma, remember? Hey, J. I’ll come back with your brother and I’ll show you my overalls, okay? I pinky-promise.”

Derek can practically _sense_ Dex’s disapproval from where he’s standing, but Jordan is getting up and tucking Derek’s pinky against hers, and Derek doesn’t mind coming back anyway. He nods a goodbye at Haley and Brianna, the latter looking up from her phone to hug Dex goodbye.

“Sir,” Derek says, shaking Mr. Poindexter’s hand.

“Take care of my boy,” he says, nodding at Derek and offering him a smile.

 _He takes care of me,_ Derek thinks. “I will,” he says.

Mrs. Poindexter gives him a fierce hug and whispers into his ear, “Thank you.”

“For what?” Derek asks as she lets him go.

“He’s happier now,” Mrs. Poindexter says. “And I know we – we didn’t always make it easy for him. It was hard for him now. He’s better, because of you. I can tell. So thank you.”

Derek doesn’t know what to say. He’s glad when Dex comes over to say goodbye, and he can stumble back to lean against his car and try not to hyperventilate. Dex comes over to him after everyone’s gone inside to lean next to him.

“I don’t mind coming back,” Derek says, before Dex can say anything. “I’m not going to lie to her.”

Dex is quiet for a moment. “You don’t mind coming back as my boyfriend?”

 _Not what he means_ , Derek thinks, but his heart speeds up anyway. He shrugs. “We can break up. You don’t treat me right.”

“Oh, fuck off, Nurse. I’m driving. Keys?”

Derek tries to tell him a million times that he’s fine driving in the car when someone is next to him, but Dex just ignores him, so when they set off from the Poindexters’ house, Dex is in the drivers’ seat. They spend the first twenty minutes arguing about how fancy Derek’s car is, which, hello, he just got whatever one his father said he should. He doesn’t know anything about cars. The next twenty minutes are spent arguing about the music. (“I am _not_ listening to your sad indie hipster music for seven hours, Nursey.”) They eventually settle on Dex’s playlist for the first three hours, Derek’s playlist for the next three, and neutral ground with a playlist Chowder sends them on the groupchat for the last hour.

“I can’t stand this for much longer,” Derek says mournfully over the sounds of Dex’s dull dad rock.

“You’re such a drama queen,” Dex says, rolling his eyes. “Half of these songs are your recommendation.”

“I haven’t heard any of them,” Derek argues.

“That’s because you have no patience,” says Dex.

Derek sticks his tongue out at him when he’s sure Dex isn’t looking. A few moments pass, in which there is what Derek grudgingly admits is a wicked guitar solo. Dex says, “Hey.”

Derek raises an eyebrow that Dex, responsible driver that he is, won’t see. “Hey.”

“What’s your family like?”

Derek weighs this question in his head. He looks out the window to green grass and blue skies and roadside signs, squinting against the sun. “You’ve met my parents,” he says finally. “My extended family is kind of crazy. Holidays with them are super messy. I’ve got almost as many cousins as you. No siblings, though.”

Dex nods absently. “Yeah, you are very obviously an only child.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” Dex says innocently.

“Dick,” Derek says, laughing. “Not much to know, really. Why?”

“I told you about my family, you tell me about yours,” Dex says. “I mean, you met mine, and they’re crazy.”

“They’re not,” Derek protests.

“They’ve embarrassed me enough that you’ll be bringing up those baby pictures until I’m 70 years old. Yeah, I know Haley showed you those. It was pretty obvious. Anyway, it seems like a fair trade. I don’t know. I want to make a good impression. I’ve – messed up in the past.”

Derek is quiet for a while. His parents, he knows, really liked Dex. They’re also crazy protective over him.

“Well,” Derek says, tilting his head back against the seat. “My dad was born and raised in New York. His family had lots of money, but it still wasn’t really a great time to be growing up black and Hispanic. I guess the money part made up for some of it. He and my ammi, they – ugh. I can’t say it. They knew each other in college – ugh.” “They had you,” Dex finishes, taking pity on him.

“Yeah.” Derek doesn’t mention what feeling like he was a mistake did to his self worth. “But the thing is, my ammi didn’t realize until too late, and by then she’d met my mama. It was hard on my dad, I think. He really loved her. He got over it, though. He was always there when I was growing up. He’s a good listener.” A bit like Dex in that way. “He has the same taste in TV shows that I do.”

“So does he also cry over New Girl, then?” Dex says.

“I’ve never cried over New Girl,” Derek denies.

“I’ve literally seen you crying over New Girl four times in the Haus, once in the library, and twice in Chowder’s dorm. One time I called you and you were laughing and crying, and when I asked why, you told me you were watching New Girl. Whenever the team watched New Girl on roadies you always had tears in your eyes.”

“I get emotional,” Derek says defensively. “Whatever. That’s my dad. He’s kind of awkward, but charming, too. My ammi, she and her family moved to New York from Pakistan when she was a kid. They had to deal with a lot of crap. She’s really smart. She wanted me to do anything I wanted, but I think she was scared when I picked hockey. She always gives me the best advice.”

“I doubt you usually take it.”

“You’re such a jerk,” Derek says, grinning. “My mama lived in France but came abroad to study. She stayed for my ammi. They didn’t even know they were going to stay together or get married, then. She told me she just couldn’t bring herself to leave. She’s brutally honest. She loves hockey as much as I do.” He shrugs. “That’s basically it.”

“They sound incredible,” Dex says.

Derek smiles. “Yeah. My ammi’s side of the family are kind of old-fashioned, though. I don’t think they approve of Mama, but they don’t show it around me. I love them, though. So like, be warned when we meet them for Eid.”

“What else do you do?”

“A lot,” Derek says. “It’s super chaotic, honestly. We usually wake up early to go to a mosque to pray. We go shopping and open presents after. Then it’s lunch with my ammi’s family, which is always at some restaurant my grandma’s picked out. Ammi usually picks a charity for us to donate to. Then we get to go home and chill, Facetime my mama’s family, and make dinner. My dad’s not a Muslim, but he comes over for dinner anyway. You know, it’s okay if you’d rather stay at home.”

“Please, I don’t give up that easily,” Dex says, flashing Derek a grin that makes his knees go weak. “Plus now is a little late to say that, Nursey. And I’m good. Seriously. You just survived pretending to be my boyfriend and being hugged by every member of my family, so.”

“Yeah, but I’m me and I’m amazing,” Derek says, and then is diverted by the next song that comes on. “Hey, this is Rihanna!”

“I told you half of it is your recommendations,” Dex says, exasperated.

Derek beams at him.

He doesn’t want to fall asleep during his and Dex’s swawesome d-man road trip, but the bumps in the road and Dex humming to Rihanna sway him to sleep. The next time he’s conscious, the music has been turned off. Dex’s coat is tossed over him, and the car is parked. He stifles a yawn and looks to his left. They’re parked at a gas station, and Dex is talking in a low voice on the phone.

“I’m serious, Haley,” he’s saying. He looks over, sees Derek, and says, “He’s awake. Talk to you later, love you.”

Derek shifts, rubbing at his eyes.

“Hey, Sleeping Beauty,” Dex says, tossing a pack of chips at him.

Derek catches the chips bag with reflexes born out of all the times Chowder had made him and Dex go through practice drills with him. He makes a face at Dex, remembers that Dex has been driving this whole time, and sits up straight, more alert. “Get out,” he says, waving in Dex’s general direction. “Wait. Not what I meant. I mean get out of the seat, it’s my turn to drive.”

“You’re not even awake,” Dex argues, but he relents in the end.

Dex sleeps for an hour, wakes up horrified that he slept while Derek was driving, and ignores Derek’s attempts to reassure him by pointing out that he’d been listening to The Get Down soundtrack, which was basically like listening to someone talk.

They pass the last few hours listening to Chowder’s playlist, except it’s actually really terrible, so Derek downloads the soundtrack from that Glee episode where they go to New York, except Dex looks like he’s in physical pain listening to it. They switch to Derek’s playlist, then, because his never really got a chance. Dex reads out the highlights from the group chat, and dutifully sends Snapchats where he talks about Derek’s supreme driving skills sarcastically and focuses the camera over to Derek, then himself, then Derek. Holster and Ransom keep sending back the word stop in all capitals.

“They just know they’re losing,” Derek says, and savours the sound of Dex’s laughter. Run Away With Me by Carly Rae Jepsen comes on and Derek loses his shit.

“Dex, Dex,” he says. “This is my song. Dex, this is my _song_.”

“I know, it’s on your playlist,” Dex says dryly. “I am begging you not to sing, Nursey. Please. You are terrible at singing. You will probably cause a car crash.”

“Okay, rude,” Derek says, injured. “You sing for me, then. Please. Pleaseeee. You’re a good singer. I’ve heard you in the shower. I will absorb your singing by osmosis. I will live vicariously through your singing.”

“No. I don’t even know the words.”

“Oh please. Like I believe that.”

“No.”

“Holster and Ransom sing for each other.”

Dex pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. “I hate you.”

But when Carly sings _cause you make me feel like, I could be driving you all night_ , Dex sings along with her. Derek laughs delightedly, and starts singing too. Dex tells him not to but he’s smiling. Derek tells him to Snapchat this.

He doesn’t even realize when they’ve reached New York. He doesn’t think it really hits him until they’re waiting to be buzzed in by the doorman of his apartment building and his shoulders are settling and he feels himself relax amidst the honking and buzzing and screaming. He looks at Dex then, conscious of how different this is from Dex’s family’s home. That’s when he realizes that he actually completely forgot to tell his moms Dex would be with him. He just told them he’d be a couple of days later than he’d planned, but home in time for Eid.

“Yikes,” Derek says.

“What?” Dex asks suspiciously. Derek is absolutely not going to say anything but somehow Dex figures it out again. “You forgot to tell your parents I’d be with you, didn’t you?”

“How do you always _know_!” Derek says, throwing his hands up. “Okay, it’s no big deal – ”

“No big _deal_?”

They’re still arguing about it when they get inside the building, when they get in the elevator, when the elevator doors slide open, and when they knock on the door to Derek’s moms’ place. They’re so busy arguing about it that they don’t realize Derek’s moms are in front of them until his mama clears her throat pointedly. Their heads snap over to her and they fall silent.

Dex recovers first. He clears his throat, sticks out his hand, and says, “Hi, Mrs. and Mrs. Karim-Beliveau.” Derek has to give him props for a perfect pronunciation. “I’m really glad to meet you. I’m Will, Derek’s partner. I mean, hockey partner. His teammate.”

Laila stares at him, while Amina takes his hand and smiles, though even she looks a bit shellshocked.

“Lovely to meet you, Will,” she says. “Derek’s told us so much about you.”

Betrayal, thinks Derek.

Everyone turns expectantly to Laila, who clears her throat and says, “You’re a great player. Saw you on the ice this year. Der, you didn’t tell us your friend was coming.”

Better than he expected from his mama, who’s slow to new people and probably still vindicatively remembers Derek telling her about Dex moving out. Derek shrugs. “We’re trying to win a competition.”

He can practically hear Dex’s insides shrivel up and die.

“I see,” Laila says. “Welcome to our home.”

Derek smiles widely and slings an arm across Dex’s shoulder. “This is going to be great,” he says.

They’ve reached New York at around seven in the night, so Laila and Amina heat up dinner and usher them to bed, reminding Derek that if he wanted to wake up to eat before fasting, he’d need to get a good night’s sleep. There are a million guest rooms for Dex to sleep in, but they drag a mattress into Derek’s room instead. He suffers through Dex inspecting his childhood bedroom, with its Cheetah Girls, Panic! at the Disco, and NSYNC posters, and baby pink walls (Derek and his moms had painted them) that match all the white, gold-trimmed furniture. By inspecting, Derek means making fun of. They Facetime Chowder before they go to sleep, but Derek gets up a few hours later to eat sehri with his moms. Now he’s woken up again, bouncing on Dex’s mattress so they can go out.

“Rise and shine, sunshine,” Derek sings, holding a bucket of water strategically placed to tip over Dex’s hair if necessary. He spares a moment, one moment and only one, to admire the golden light from his window glinting off of Dex’s hair and his freckles in stark relief against the sun, eyes closed. Who could blame him from looking at Dex when Dex won’t know he’s looking? From staring at his eyelashes against his collarbone, the mole on his cheek?

He looks away.

One of Dex’s eyes cracks open. “What are you doing, Nursey?” he murmurs.

“I’m showing you around New York,” Derek says. “Now get up or I’ll pour this water over your head.”

“That would be a waste of water,” Dex says, but he gets up, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “Alright, city boy. Lead the way.”

So Derek does.

He takes Dex sight-seeing, to his favorite hipster cafes, to Central Park and then other parks that are less crowded, his father’s favorite museum. They vlog most of it to shove it in Ransom and Holster’s faces and because Chowder had asked them to. It all feels a bit surreal, like a rom-com montage from a Disney Channel Original Movie. Though when Derek drags Dex on the subway, there is a bit of an embarrassing incident.

Dex snags an empty seat and gestures for Derek to sit next to him, but Derek leans on the pole by Dex’s seat instead.

“You think that makes you look cool, don’t you,” Dex says flatly.

“No I don’t,” Derek says, scoffing.

He absolutely does.

He ends up regretting it when the train starts up and he loses his balance, toppling into Dex’s lap.

Internally, he’s screaming. Externally, he says, “Oops.”

Dex starts laughing.

The other inhabitants of the train don’t even look up. God, Derek loves New York.

He makes himself get up even though Dex’s lap is insanely comfortable, and spares a moment to thank Allah for his brown skin obscuring most of any potential blushing.

He wants to ask _what are we doing_ , because there’s trying to one-up Ransom and Holster, and then there’s this. Derek doesn’t really know what this is. But he doesn’t want to mess it up. So he doesn’t say anything.

────────────

It’s ridiculous to be attracted to Dex. Sometimes when Derek can’t sleep he tries to think of everything unattractive about Dex. This was his favorite hobby frog year, in-between writhing with anger over being attracted to a Republican.

Dex’s ears are too big. He has too many freckles. He turns red more often than Derek says chill. He dresses like a lumberjack. Unfortunately these things are madly attractive at the same time that they are unattractive.

He _tries_ to think of unattractive things about Dex. He usually ends up thinking about Dex at morning practice in his gear, or Dex fixing up the Haus with his expression fixed in intense concentration, or Dex in a suit with his collar unbuttoned and his shoulders stretching the material of his jacket.

He thinks, dismayed: _Fuck, really? This one? Him? Really, are you sure about that?_ It doesn’t help. He can’t stop.

────────────

**JUNE 2017 (NOW)**

Dex is sitting on Derek’s bed with his arms crossed when Derek opens the door. The blankets have all been folded, and the mattress straightened on the floor.

“You didn’t wake me up,” he says immediately, bypassing a simple ‘good morning.’ Then he looks at Derek. His mouth tilts up. “What is that on your face?”

“It’s a flower,” Derek says, raising a hand to his cheek self-consciously. “There’s always face painting and henna at the mosque, and I left you a note, and I _did_ wake you up. You said ‘Happy Eid’ and then you started snoring again.”

“I _do not_ – ”

“It’s okay,” Derek says, crossing over to sit next to him and knocking their knees together. “It’s not like you would have been praying there anyway. My moms didn’t expect you to come. You can come shopping with us. I have to go change.”

“Why do you need to change?”

“You’re going to make fun of me.”

“I always make fun of you.”

“Fine. I change like three times on Eid.”

Dex snorts. “For breakfast, lunch, and dinner?” When Derek glares at him, he raises one hand placatingly. “Sorry, sorry!” he says. “Why?”

“I wear this,” Derek explains, elaborately gesturing down at his _shalwar kameez_ with a sweep of his hands, “in the morning to pray. I can’t exactly wear this to go out shopping, so I change again into jeans and a shirt. Then I change into something fancier for lunch with my ammi’s family.”

“Well you look nice,” Dex says, and now it’s Derek’s turn to snort.

“I’ll lend you a suit for lunch,” he says, nudging Dex’s leg with his own.

“Are you sure they’d want me there?” Dex asks uncomfortably.

“It’ll be _fine_ ,” Derek says empathetically. “Anyway, just mention you’re a com sci major and they’ll love you.” He stands up and stretches; Dex is looking down at his knees. “Be right back.”

When he’s finished changing into a new, short-sleeved button-down tucked into his favorite jeans, Dex is no longer in the room. Derek grabs his phone and wallet, and follows the faint noise of chatter outside his room. He stares at his moms and Dex, who are standing in front of the door and laughing. Dex has one hand on the back of his neck sheepishly, Laila has her lips pursed in a way that means she wants to smile, and Amina’s eyes are crinkled.

He shakes himself out of it and walks over to them. He gives both of his moms a kiss on the cheek and tells them they look beautiful, because they do. He pretends to give Dex the same treatment and snickers when Dex shoves him away.

Shopping with his moms is always absolute pandemonium, but having Dex there calms things a little bit. He also volunteers to carry the bags. Derek tried not to laugh when he’s struggling under their weight two hours later, and when he exhales with relief after they sit down to eat pretzels.

Derek and his moms always go a little crazy with shopping. He goes home with two pairs of jeans, four shirts, three books, two ties, three bandanas, a Jack Zimmerman action figure, a lobster stuffy to spite Dex, and of course, overalls. He makes Dex take a picture for Jordan when he tries them on in the changing room.

He doesn’t expect Dex to get him anything, but when they get back home, Dex pulls him aside and takes out a shopping bag.

“I need your advice,” Dex says, biting his lip and digging around in the bag for – a ring box.

Derek feels very faint all of a sudden.

“I know you’ve gotten lots of presents already,” Dex continues, “but I wanted to get you and your moms something. Tell me if it’s a super bad idea and I’ll return them.”

“Them?” Derek manages to say.

“Yeah, they’re a set. This one’s yours,” Dex says, opening the box to reveal a silver ring set with a green gemstone. Derek stares, speechless. “Sorry, I know it’s super stupid.”

“It’s not,” Derek says, his voice coming out hoarse. He clears his throat. “I really like it. Thanks, Dex, I – ”

Dex shrugs. “Yeah, well, happy Eid.”

“Dex,” Derek says, and his mouth is dry but he wants to continue, he needs –

“No problem,” Dex cuts him off, sounding embarrassed. “Least I could do, since you’re all letting me stay, and with lunch and dinner and everything. You think your moms would like them?”

“Yeah,” Derek says, “of course. Can I – could I see them? And can I wear mine?”

“Yeah,” Dex echoes, and places the silver ring into Derek’s open palm. It is a moment that holds some sort of meaning, but Derek will be damned if he knows what it means.

Laila and Amina’s rings match Derek’s, except they’re both blue. He watches Dex present the rings to them awkwardly and feels his heart like it’s about to burst. Laila grudgingly meets Derek’s eye after putting hers on and nods, as if to say, _he’s all right._ Amina gives Dex a hug and seems touched. But when Laila and Dex start up a conversation about hockey and Dex is enthusiastically talking about one of Derek’s goals in May, she gestures at Derek to come over into the kitchen where she’s been making _gulab jaman_. It’s one of her and Derek’s favorite sweets.

Derek comes over and starts helping her roll balls out of sticky dough on the countertop without saying anything. He thinks he knows what this is about. He waits.

“Are you going to tell me why you brought him here?” she asks, finally.

“I wanted him to be here,” Derek says, which is the truth.

“You know that any friend of yours is welcome here, always,” Amina says. “But I only – I only want to make sure you’re being careful.”

He sets his hands down on the counter and turns to her. “I am careful.”

His ammi sighs. She says, “This boy has hurt you, _meri jaan._ I’m just worried that he is going to hurt you again.”

“We’re not trying to hurt each other anymore,” Derek says.

Amina looks at him. She nods. “I trust you,” she says slowly. “And I do like him.”

Derek smiles.

He’s had a lot of memorable Eids. But this one, he thinks, is really good.

Of course, there’s still lunch with his ammi’s family to get through with, and there’s the definite possibility that he is going to die. Because as he watches Dex fiddle with his tie, he’s thinking that there is no way he can survive a whole afternoon watching Dex in one of his suits.

Dex looks. Nice. He’s wearing one of the identical black and white suits Derek’s father’s family loves giving him on holidays. He and Dex are the same height, and it fits Dex just as well if not better than it would fit Derek, who’s gone for a less restrained blue suit.

And he’s pretty nervous about his family interacting with Dex, too, because they’re – not old money, not like his father’s side of the family; they’d had a lot less money when they first came to New York, but they’d worked their way up. He just doesn’t know how comfortable Dex will be with it. Exhibit A: the restaurant they’ve chosen to have dinner in, which is a sparkling and expansive example of wealth. He looks anxiously up at the golden chandelier, then back to Dex at his side, who looks perfectly normal, if nervous.

“They do know I’m coming, right?” he asks Derek a low voice as they trail behind Laila and Amina, both resplendent in a matching suit and _shalwar kameez,_ respectively, in a different shade of blue than Derek’s.

“Ammi told them,” Derek assures him.

“And you’re sure I shouldn’t have brought anything? Obviously not wine, but – ”

“Dude, it’s fine. You didn’t need to bring anything.”

Derek’s moms come to a stop and he involuntarily winces.

Exhibit B: the long, reserved table in front of them, filled at every place with a member of Derek’s extended family. His mother’s two sisters with their husbands; their oldest son, a few years older than Derek, and their younger children; her brother and his wife; baby Zainab in an adorable frock; Fatima, the cousin closest to Derek in age and in relationships, who looks up from who she’s texting to smile when she sees him. And of course, his grandparents.

Derek readies himself for greeting every member of them and wishing them all _Eid Mubarak_. Amina puts her hand on Laila’s back, steeling herself, but they both greet everyone with ease. His ammi had put all her family’s disapproval aside to marry Laila, and he knows that it was in part because of him that they had eventually relented to attend the wedding. His grandparents had wanted them all to come home for dinner and meet all of their friends every Eid and on holidays; this was the compromise. It’s a miracle that all of his grandparents’ rich brown party friends aren’t here at all.

He can feel Dex thrumming with tense energy at his side. He hesitates for a moment, and then presses one hand against Dex’s lower back for a few beats. He’s close enough to hear Dex exhale. He removes his hand. They sit down.

Fatima looks at Dex and raises her eyebrows at him; she’s got the same brown eyes as his ammi, a darker shade than Dex’s. Derek raises his eyebrows back.

Dinner goes fairly well. The food is delicious, at least. Like Dex’s family, the table is in uproar with jokes and laughter a few minutes in, but because a guest is here everyone behaves themselves and no one side-eyes his mama. His grandmother, her hair streaked with grey but her eyes determined and hard despite the wrinkles stretching the skin there down, asks Dex what he’s majoring in not even twenty minutes into dinner.

“Computer science?” Dex says nervously, looking at Derek, who gives him a discreet thumbs-up.

“Hmm,” his grandmother says approvingly, and his grandfather gives Amina a meaningful look. Derek rolls his eyes.

Derek thinks Dex does okay. He makes Derek’s grandparents smile, makes Derek’s favorite aunt laugh, strikes up an earnest conversation with Fatima, and plays with Zainab until she’s giggling and spitting out her food. If Derek’s family is under the impression that Derek has brought Dex here as a significant other, no one shows it. If Derek is a little disappointed about that, no one needs to know.

Back at the apartment, there’s only one potential hurdle left to jump over: his father, who will be coming over soon for dinner. There’s still a few hours before that, though, so Derek and his moms facetime Laila’s family in France. After, he drags Dex to the gaming room to play a couple of rounds of ice hockey. He totally wins, and he texts Dex’s defeat to the group chat. Ransom and Holster have taken to sending their best selfies to combat their texts, but he and Dex are definitely winning in this – whatever this is.

Then it’s time to help his moms prepare for dinner. Dex hovers by and insists on helping until everyone eventually gives in. He overhears Laila telling Amina to keep an eye out for the spices because there’s a white boy in their house, but he doesn’t think Dex does so it’s fine. When his father arrives, he’s not exactly nervous – his father’s easy-going, and doesn’t tend to hold grudges. But when he does, they last for an eternity.

He doesn’t have anything to worry about. Gabriel and Dex shake hands, Gabriel pats him on the back and winks at Derek, and that’s it. The dinner all gets set down on the new dining table (Derek had made them get a new one, because the other one was too long and empty), and they tuck in.

It’s not like his home is always empty, but it’s just that this, all of them together with a good meal, is something that he doesn’t take for granted. It’s like breakfast at the Commons at Samwell: family, of a different kind. And Dex sitting next to him, dryly making fun of Derek with Gabriel and complimenting Amina over the food and discussing hockey seriously with Laila, seems right.

He and Dex offer to wash the dishes after, so they end up in the too-big kitchen. They have a dishwasher, but the ritual, the feeling of being next to Dex and cleaning up, is something Derek doesn’t want to set aside. It feels, and he knows this is stupid, domestic. Comforting. Derek hops on the counter to dry and put away the dishes while Dex cleans them. He swings his legs back and forth carelessly and talks to Dex aimlessly.

Dex hands him a plate and says, a bit abruptly, “What does _habibi_ mean? Your moms called each other that, before.”

Derek starts drying off the plate and looks at him, a bit surprised. Sure, Amina had said absently, “Thanks, _habibi_ ,” when Laila passed her the juice, but he hadn’t expected Dex to take note of it.

“I heard you say it once,” Dex adds, avoiding his eyes.

“Oh,” Derek says. “It’s Arabic, it means, like, my love or beloved.”

“Do you speak Arabic?”

Derek shrugs. “Yeah. Both of my moms speak it.”

“How many languages _do_ you speak?” Dex asks.

“Not a lot,” says Derek. “English, obviously. Arabic. Sindhi and Urdu because of my ammi. French, because of my mama. I learned Spanish for my dad. That’s it.”

“That’s it,” Dex repeats incredulously. “That’s so many, Nursey, Jesus. I barely speak one.”

“Lol, it’s not like I can speak Irish,” Derek says.

Dex groans. “Nursey, I can barely _speak_ Irish – ”

Derek laughs until Dex is laughing too, and his parents peek their heads in to check on them. His mama gives him a meaningful look, but Derek doesn’t want to think about it too hard, not right now. He wants to think about Dex’s smile instead, and the ring on his finger catching the light above.

────────────

He asks his mother, once, why she didn’t marry his father. He asks it as they sit, parked, outside her family’s home, when he’s barely fifteen. He asks because his grandparents have mentioned Gabriel pointedly several times, and because Laila hadn’t come for this visit.

He loves his mama, so much. He loves them all, even though school is hell to navigate being queer, black, Hispanic, Muslim, and with three parents. He just wants to know, and his ammi never judges any of his questions.

“It wasn’t that I didn’t love him,” she says, pausing for a long time to think it over. “I did. I do.”

“Not enough,” Derek says. “Not like that.”

“I am so glad I met him,” Amina tells him, pressing a kiss to Derek’s forehead. “Because I got you. I could never regret any of it. But marrying him – it wouldn’t have made me happy.”

“Everyone wanted you to.”

“They did,” Amina says. “They were willing to overlook the fact that we hadn’t married yet, that he wasn’t a Muslim, as long as I would marry him and we would raise you together.” Her tone is only a little bitter.

“But you couldn’t,” Derek says.

“I couldn’t,” Amina says. “I didn’t realize it then, until I thought about a world in which I couldn’t be with your mama. I couldn’t do it.”

“Why?” Derek presses.

Amina brushes down his hair and smiles. “I had already given my heart away.”

────────────

**JUNE 2017 (NOW)**

“So,” Holster says, standing in the kitchen of the Haus with his arms crossed.

“So,” Derek says, eyes narrowed.

The time has come. He and Dex have bidden goodbye to New York, packed Derek’s things, exchanged goodbyes with Derek’s family (only three people cried), and taken the three hour and forty minute journey to Samwell. Reunions have taken place (Chowder and Bitty nearly cracked his spine hugging him, and Derek had fought the urge to hug the Haus and spin around the empty campus). Rooms have been negotiated (Lardo and Shitty are taking Chowder’s room, so Derek gets to bunk with Chowder in his, total win). Suitcases have been put away (everyone’s kind of tossed the stuff they don’t need at the moment in the basement since it’s the biggest room, to Dex’s annoyance). Pies have been eaten (Dex helped make one). Now, they confront Ransom and Holster for the title of Best D-Men.

“For the record, this is stupid, but I still think Nursey and I deserve a point for _still playing hockey together_ ,” Dex says.

Derek nudges him and murmurs, “You were supposed to wait for Ransom to say ‘so’ and then you would have said ‘so’ but you messed it up, dude.”

Dex sighs.

“Your observations are noted,” Ransom says, “and duly dismissed because Holtzy and I have played hockey together for longer than both of you. We have decided your actions the past week add up to the one point you missed during the engagement party.”

“That is _so_ not fair,” Derek says. “We deserve like five points for all that! I met his family, he met my family, he celebrated Eid with me, I bought overalls because of his younger sister, we toured basically all of New York together, and we drove a combined fourteen hours together! Have you not seen the Snapchats we sent?”

Holster raises a finger. “But Rans and I have already done all that stuff. Minus the overalls, and substituting Eid for Christmas, Hanukkah, and Thanksgiving. Also substituting New York for Toronto, Niagara Falls, and Buffalo.”

“Why are y’all doing this in my kitchen?” Bitty breaks in, exasperated, poking his head inside.

“Silence, Bits!” Holster says. “The kitchen is a sacred place, and neutral ground.”

Bitty casts them a dark look and removes his head.

“Oh, fine,” Derek grumbles. “So we’re at an impasse, then?”

“Impasse,” Dex says, his voice mocking. “You’re such a fucking English major, Nursey – ”

“I swear to God, Poindexter – ”

“Anyways,” says Ransom loudly, “we are prepared for your surrender.”

“Not a chance in hell,” Dex says at the same time that Derek says, “No fucking way.”

“Fine,” Holster says dramatically. “Then we will continue our competition throughout our stay at the Haus.” He lowers his voice. “Also, we are totally proud of you guys!”

“Good job,” Ransom affirms.

“But you are going _down_!” Holster crows.

“I don’t think you’re ready for this,” Derek says. “Wait. Is that a Beyoncé lyric?”

“It is!” Bitty shouts from outside the kitchen.

“Whatever, you guys are definitely losing,” says Dex, and reaches without looking to fistbump Derek.

Continuing the competition ends up requiring a whiteboard that Ransom and Holster drag (from some mysterious location?) into the kitchen, to record points. Chowder, being a neutral observer and also good at handwriting, draws a tally chart. One column titled Holsom, and the other titled Nursey&Dex.

“Just proof that we are the superior d-men,” Ransom had said. “We are wholesome, while you guys don’t even have a good ship name.”

“Dursey?” Derek had tried brainstorming. “Nex? Nursedexter? Poindy? Dill? Werek?”

“Please stop,” Dex said, looking pained. So they didn’t end up having a ship name.

Chowder writes out twenty-eight tally marks on each side, but the problem remains of how they’re going to get more points, because no one is really interested in playing Shitty’s trivia game anymore. They end up just competing against each other through a series of trials that have little to no rules throughout the two days since Derek and Dex have arrived. But even after one team gets a point, the other eventually catches up. Derek and Dex win during a three-legged race, but Ransom and Holster overpower them in the laser tag place near campus. Ransom and Holster win at flip-cup, but Derek and Dex dominate them during a pie-making competition according to judges Bitty, Ford, Whiskey, and Tango. They all succeed when Shitty blindfolds Ransom and Dex and makes Holster and Derek lead them over to pin the tail on Jack’s ass on a signed poster of him. There’s some serious discussion about breaking into Faber to test who skates better, but it’s shut down quickly.

“This is supposed to be a vacation!” Bitty had hollered, close to tears. “I already had to convince Shitty not to wrap the lax bros’ house in toilet paper! It’s only been a week!”

By the time they’re trying to decide who can race to a makeshift finish line the fastest with their d-man riding on their back, Derek thinks everyone’s pretty sick of them. It’s not like all of the hockey team is here – if there was, he thinks they’d all have gotten thrown out by now. There’s just Bitty, Jack, Shitty, Lardo, Ransom, Holster, Ford, Whiskey, and Tango. The waffles either couldn’t convince their parents to let them stay in a frat house with no adult supervision or had work or other plans, which is understandable. Still, everyone’s kind of losing their patience, even Shitty, and this is all his fault, really.

He really doesn’t know how he got here, standing in front of the Haus and arguing with Dex over who should carry who while Chowder sits in the grass and films them. Holster and Ransom have, of course, already presented a united front, with Holster carrying Ransom on his back easily.

“I take more weights than you do at the gym,” Derek points out to Dex.

“We’re the same size, height, and build, and they have an unfair advantage,” Dex says.

“Look at my _arms_ , Dex. They’re beefier than yours.”

“I literally can’t believe you said that. I literally can’t believe I’m doing this. But fine.”

After, when it ends in another fucking tie and they’re all collapsed on the ground and there’s grass in Derek’s hair, he kind of regrets it.

Dex swats at his arm and says, “This is your fault.”

“You’re heavy,” Derek complains.

“I am the _same_ – ”

“It’s okay, guys, you got there at the same time,” says Chowder encouragingly, coming over to crouch near them. He takes out a packaged Ring Pop. “Want a Ring Pop? Bitty and Jack got them when they were grocery shopping.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Derek says, pleased. He grabs the Ring Pop, rips it open, and starts sucking on it.

Dex mutters something under his breath and stands up, putting his hands on his hips and looking over to where Ransom and Holster are tangled up in the grass. “Well?” he says. “What now? We’re still tied.”

Ransom gets up, rubbing his shoulder. “Dance competition?” he suggests.

“Oh God,” Dex says grimly.

“I feel like you guys are just going to be tied in the end. My handwriting keeps getting smaller and smaller but the whiteboard is really cramped,” Chowder says. “Maybe you’re both the best d-men – ”

“There’s one way to end this, one way in which you both can never compare!” Holster declares, pulling something off his finger. His class ring? Derek squints at him – he’s shifting position to get down on _one knee_ , and he’s taking both of Ransom’s hands in his own while Ransom stands there looking a bit shellshocked.

“Justin Oluransi,” he says. “Ransom. My best friend, d-man for life – ”

“Oh, no fucking _way_!” Derek says while everyone else is staring, taking his Ring Pop out of his mouth. He’s scrambling up to get down on his knee, pulling a disgruntled Dex over with the Ring Pop still in his hand.

“Rans, would you do me the honor of – ”

“Dex, say you’ll marry me, quick – ”

“I’m going to be a best man!”

“THAT IS ENOUGH!”

Everyone freezes in a strange portrait: Derek and Holster kneeling awkwardly in the grass, Dex and Ransom standing with their mouths open, Chowder jumping with excitement while filming with his phone.

Bitty stands in front of them with his arms crossed, glowering. “What in heaven’s name do you all think you’re doing?” After they all exchange looks and say nothing, he goes on, “That’s what I thought. This has gone too far. Are y’all really going to marry each other to win this competition? And if you _all_ do, it’s still a tie! It’s time to accept that. You’re both the best d-men. Now come inside or _stay_ outside.”

There is a general mumble of, “Sorry, Bits,” as everyone starts to head inside, but Holster stops dead in front of the door.

“It’s so simple,” he says, almost to himself, “I never even remembered.”

“Remembered what?” Bitty says, warily.

“It’s just that there _is_ one thing Nursey and Dex never did that Rans and I _did_ do,” Holster says. “They never shared a room in the Haus together with no one else for longer than two months.”

 _Ouch_ , Derek thinks, wincing.

“Yeah,” Ransom says slowly, still looking a little astonished from before. “Bro, that’s why we didn’t give you the attic, because we knew what would happen.”

“Alright,” Bitty begins, “that’s all in the past – ”

“Fine, we’ll do it now, then,” Dex says.

There is a silence. Chowder looks at Dex with raised eyebrows.

“What?” Derek says faintly.

Dex lifts his chin. “You heard me. We’ll share Lardo’s old room again, this time until at least November.”

“No, that – I mean,” Bitty says, despairingly. “No, I – ”

“Nursey and I will discuss it,” Dex says before anyone else can say anything, and grabs Derek by the arm, pulling him towards the door and inside.

“We’ll share Lardo’s old room?” Derek quotes at him when Dex has dragged them over to the living room and let go of his arm. His heart is pounding like crazy and the spot where Dex’s hand had been feels burned into his skin. “That didn’t exactly go well the first time.”

“I know,” Dex says, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “I didn’t really think it through, I – I don’t know how to say it. Nursey, if you don’t want to, I get that, I promise. I’ll go out there right now and admit defeat or whatever, it doesn’t matter – ”

“What does matter, then?” Derek says, nails digging into his palms.

“I was just thinking that you were about to propose to me,” Dex says, and Derek flushes. “With a fucking Ring Pop, yeah, and by the way Nursey you’ve got an actual ring on your finger, but. If you can do that, than we can share a room together, yeah? We can be better. Maybe we weren’t ready last time, but I spent all of last year feeling like we missed our chance, like we were supposed to learn how to live in that room together but we didn’t. And I’m _sorry_ I gave up on it. So I want to try again.”

Derek looks at him. He opens his mouth once, and closes it again, managing a low whistle. He kind of wants to smile, which is ridiculous. “Dex. Last time was a disaster.”

Dex shrugs. “It was mostly my fault.”

“Yeah, but I was actively trying to annoy you so you’d move out,” Derek says.

“Because I was a total dick during the Dib Flip,” counters Dex.

“I didn’t give you any space, and I never cleaned up.”

“I made things harder for you when you were injured.”

“We drove each other _nuts_. You really think we’re up to sharing that room again after all that?” Derek says. “It’s a cramped space. What if we get into a fight?”

“We’ll set up boundaries,” Dex says. “And we’ll have to talk about what we should do if we get angry. Me especially.”

“You’re serious about this,” says Derek. “Not just because you want to beat Ransom and Holster.”

“Well, that too,” Dex admits. “It could be like a trial run, to see if we could handle sharing the room for senior year.”

“You’d want to share for senior year?”

“Yeah,” Dex says, like it’s obvious.

Derek bites down on a smile. “Okay. Let’s try it.”

“Really?”

“What, now you’ve got your doubts?”

“Shut up,” Dex says, grinning at him. “Let’s check with C first, since he’s sharing with you.”

They check with Chowder, who talks to them both sternly about not being stubborn assholes and doing better this time and how he was not going to go through another repeat of last year, but he agrees to move into the basement with Whiskey, Ford, and Tango. Derek offers to find Ransom and Holster and tell them the news while Dex tells the others, but when he does go up to the attic to find them, he wishes he hadn’t.

He can hear muffled noise as he walks up the stairs, and what sounds like arguing, which is alarming to say the least. Ransom’s voice is angry and he’s saying, “Maybe I don’t want – ”

“I don’t get what you’re upset about,” Holster is saying back, sounding bewildered. “You’re the one who – ”

“Why won’t you take this seriously?” Ransom says.

There’s a pause. Holster says, hurt, “I’m not trying to – ”

“I’m sorry,” he hears Ransom murmur. “Look, I’m gonna – I’ll be back.”

Derek _means_ to back away, he really does, but he feels absolutely rooted to the spot. Then Ransom is opening the door and he’s already seen Derek in the middle of hastily starting to turn away. Derek really wishes he hadn’t come up here. Especially when he takes in Ransom’s red eyes and slumped shoulders, and when Ransom’s shoulders straighten as soon as he sees Derek.

“So you heard that,” Ransom says flatly.

“Nooo?” Derek tries. “Only a little bit?”

Ransom sighs and walks down the stairs to him, sitting down on the stair Derek is standing on and putting his head in his hands.

They’ve never spent all that much time together alone. Derek hadn’t even voted for Ransom as captain, but he’d been proud to call him one in sophomore year. And they’re family.

Hesitantly, Derek sits down next to him. He puts a hand on Ransom’s shoulder. “You wanna talk about it, bro?”

“Not sober,” Ransom mutters, but he lifts his head up from his hands to look at Derek.

“So, you and Holster,” Derek says.

Ransom snorts. “Yeah, me and Holster. It was mostly a no-homo type of thing. Threesomes with girls. We messed around. I doubt anyone would be surprised.”

“Well,” says Derek delicately, and Ransom laughs.

“You and Dex are going to move back in together, then?” he asks. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Yeah,” Derek says. “Look, Rans, I’m good. You don’t need to worry. And you and Holster – we can stop this whole thing, if you guys are fighting about it. It’s not worth it.”

“He proposed to me,” Ransom says abruptly. “For a game. Like it was nothing, like it was a joke. And all I could think is that I didn’t want it like that. What the fuck is wrong with me, that I was thinking that? How would I want it? We’re not getting married.”

“Would you want to?” Derek asks, quiet.

“I’m going to spend the rest of my life with him,” Ransom says, “and I know that. I know what you’re thinking, what it seems like – but I’m not fucking pining away over him. He’s my best friend. That’s the most important thing. I’ll tell him I was just startled, that I didn’t think he wanted that, and we’ll be back to normal.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but that’s pretty stupid,” Derek says bluntly.

“You sound like Lardo,” Ransom says, his voice fond.

“Lardo would tell you to get your head out of your ass and she’d be right,” Derek informs him. “Look, you and Holster are best friends, yeah? You’re the best friends I’ve ever known. You think that friendship could ever possibly be ruined over something like romance? You think you and Holster couldn’t survive misplaced affection?”

What great advice I am giving that I won’t follow myself, Derek thinks ruefully, and then pushes that thought away.

“He doesn’t feel the same way,” says Ransom, tired.

“You can survive that too. It might be awkward, but you could do it,” Derek says. “And also, he proposed to you.”

“To win the competition.”

“Yeah, dumbass, but he didn’t even hesitate,” Derek says. “The idea of marrying you and tying himself to you was something that didn’t scare him at all. He knew you’d both handle it.”

“That’s kind of exactly what you did with Dex, though, huh?” Ransom says, nudging Derek’s shoulder with his own.

Derek coughs. “No, I didn’t – ”

Ransom laughs again, grabbing Derek into a headlock. “Thanks, Nurse. You give pretty good advice sometimes.”

“Please tell Dex that,” Derek says once Ransom has released him with a ruffle of his hair.

Ransom stands up. “I’ll talk to Holster.” He looks determined and also a little ill.

“Hopefully he hasn’t been listening at the door, because we’re right here,” Derek says as Ransom walks away and ignores him. He sits there for a moment after Ransom has disappeared inside and thinks about telling Dex.

But it’s different. Holster definitely feels the same way that Ransom does, and even if he doesn’t, he’ll handle it. Derek and Dex? They’re not a sure bet. And things are good now. They’re going to try living together again.

────────────

**AUGUST 2016**

“Oh,” Derek says, stopping just shy of entering Lardo’s room.

Dex is inside, a bunk bed set up where Lardo’s bed had been and his suitcases in a corner half-unpacked. His head is bent over one suitcase, but he turns around when he hears Derek.

Derek has spent all summer dreading and anticipating the moment he moves into the Haus. His heart clenches painfully to see Dex, with his sleeves rolled up and his freckles bright in the afternoon light streaming from the windows. He’s so fucking confused. There’s something else, too, a feeling much more familiar: anger.

“I didn’t know you were already here,” Derek says lamely, which is a stupid thing to say because he and Dex both know it’s a lie. Dex had texted him to tell him he’d be at the Haus fixing up the room. Derek’s lost all his composure already, any pretense of chill he could have tried to pull off.

“Oh,” Dex says, straightening up and putting a hand to the back of his neck. “Um. Yeah. I didn’t know which bunk you’d want.”

It’s a painfully feeble thing to say. Derek had already texted him to say he didn’t care when they were planning out how to share the room.

The tension hangs between them, uncomfortable and stiff, and the idea of living together like this for the rest of the summer is unbearable. He wishes his mama hadn’t had a meeting so she could have come up with him, but maybe that would have been delaying things.

He doesn’t know why things are so awkward and strained. They hung out after the Dib Flip. They talked over the summer. Less frequently than they had last summer, but they’d still managed to hold up conversations, even if they were mostly either in a group chat or details about moving in.

Derek shrugs and plasters on a smile. “I don’t care.”

“Okay,” Dex says, instead of saying something normal like _It’d be hazardous to your safety to let you of all people in the top bunk, Nurse._

He hated the idea of sharing with Derek that much. Fine. Whatever. He’d probably move out before September. It didn’t matter anyway.

Derek drags his suitcase inside and prepares for a month of avoidance if not arguments.

Dex says, all in a rush, “Nursey, look, I’m sorry about the way I reacted before – ”

“It’s chill,” Derek says stiffly.

“No.” Dex is turning red. “No, it really wasn’t. You had as much a right to dibs as I did, and I’m fine with sharing with you. I was just – startled. I thought that sharing, it might mess up everything we’ve been doing well with. But it’s not an excuse. I was shitty. Sorry.”

If he’s being honest, Derek didn’t expect that much. “It’s okay,” he says finally, smiling a little for real this time. Dex smiles back.

A month later, they’ve played with fire until everything goes up in flames. They burst at the seams, fragile friendship destroyed so easily it’s as if they never had any hope of lasting. They drive each other nuts, pick at any weak spots, rile each other up. So Dex was right, in the end. It messed everything up.

────────────

**JULY 2017 (NOW)**

“You never removed the bunk beds?” Dex asks, leaning against the doorway judgmentally.

Derek makes a face at him from where he stands beside Dex, staring at the room, which is kind of a mess. “I’m _so_ sorry I never turned this room into a fancy luxury suite. A bunk bed is still a bed. C’s been using the bottom bunk.”

“For God’s sake, Nursey, you’re going to fall off the top bunk in the middle of the night one day,” Dex says, exasperated.

“You take it then, jeez,” Derek says, because he’s not in the mood to fight right now, in his favorite place with his favorite people and Dex wanting to live with him.

“Okay,” Dex says.

They both survey the room.

“We can do this,” Derek says confidently.

“Okay but can you guys hurry up, I need help getting my stuff down,” Chowder says from behind them, voice muffled by a box stuffed with Sharks memorabilia.

Here’s the thing about sharing a room in a university frat house that has curtains and always smells like the inside of a bakery when said university is closed: there’s not much to do in the room or outside of it. There’s no homework, no lectures, no assigned reading. Well, aside from all the reading they have to complete for the summer, but otherwise, it’s not like it had been the first time they tried sharing a room. They don’t need to get up for practice, either, though Derek kind of misses it, and finds himself waking up at random intervals in the morning thinking he needs to get up to eat or practice. He doesn’t usually wake up to pray in the morning, but when he does in the afternoon or night, Dex stays quiet or out of the room.

There’s less pressure. They figure out a rhythm that’s easier than Derek expected, maybe because last time they’d all been waiting for everything to blow up in their faces, and this time they’re hoping for a different ending. Hopefully not an ending at all.

If one of them needs space, they go to Chowder’s room or downstairs. Derek promises not to be a slob. Dex promises not to be an overreacting neat freak.

“If you build another Fortress of Solitude I swear I will not enter it,” Derek says solemnly, and laughs delightedly when Dex covers his face with his hands.

Dex has to go brush his teeth first in the morning because otherwise he’ll end up banging on the door yelling at Derek to hurry up. One time Derek forgets to lock the door and he bursts in to brush next to Derek, their reflections side-by-side in the mirror, shoulders almost touching. They argue, but neither of them can really understand each other with toothpaste in their mouths so it works out. But it’s a level of intimacy Derek is far too uncomfortable with. He remembers to lock the door after that.

The first week of July passes by like this: summer-slow and hot and easy, in a home with a family. _Hope in a wood house with an open door_ , Derek thinks.

Bitty makes a red and white cake on July 1st for Canada Day; everyone boos except for Jack and Ransom. They all get drunk as fuck and look at fireworks in the sky while barbecuing outside the Haus on the 4th of July, even Ransom and Jack, though they produce Canadian flags and wave them around constantly. Derek has an embarrassing memory of standing up on the picnic table Bitty had dragged out to drunkenly recreate the, “Oh captain my captain,” scene from Dead Poets’ Society at Dex. Ransom and Holster whistled at him while Bitty tweeted about it and Ford gave him a round of applause. Dex dragged Derek down from the table. This Derek remembers painfully clearly the next morning: Dex’s intent expression as he carefully brought Derek down, his arms around Derek, and Derek saying, “Oh captain my captain, William my William,” before he collapsed into giggles. Thankfully no one mentions it, either because they were also as drunk as him or because they pitied him.

He also catches Ransom and Holster making out the next day, so at least he did one thing right. Except then they’re making out all the time, even though everyone fines them constantly, and it’s really obvious when they’re having sex because the beds in the attic squeak a _lot_. Plus Dex never even suggests that he and Derek should make out for the competition too like Derek’s been hoping he would. So it’s a bit of a loss.

The competition lasts for another week; to the chagrin of everyone else, it becomes part of their daily routines. Holster will make Ransom’s breakfast, so Derek will bring Dex his coffee exactly the way he likes it. At random intervals when they’re sitting near each other, one of them will burst out with, “I know Nursey’s favourite book,” or, “I know all four hundred and twenty items on Holster’s bucket list.”

Eventually it just sort of tapers off. They call it at a tie at sixty-sixty points in a ceremony with Shitty, Lardo, and Chowder with a dignified four-way handshake wherein Holster and Ransom swear to share the title of Best D-Men.

Everyone insists on going to Jerry’s to celebrate the end of the cursed competition, so post-handshake Derek is laying on the bottom bunk on his stomach, flipping pages absently through a book and waiting for Dex to finish his phone call with his mother so they can go downstairs.

Dex turns the phone off. He looks a little – a little off himself.

“Did you tell her I said hi?” Derek asks, sitting up.

“Like, five times, every time you told me to,” Dex says, rolling his eyes, but there’s still something strange about his tone.

Derek closes his book. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” says Dex, a clear lie. “Also _what_ are you wearing, Nursey?”

Derek looks down. “Clothes? What, you’d prefer I take them off?” He waggles his eyebrows.

“Please,” Dex says, the tips of his ears turning pink. “I am not joking when I say I literally hate you right now Nurse, you’re wearing a tank top and skinny jeans and sunglasses inside.”

“Okay, one, that’s just rude,” Derek says. “Two, we are going outside soon which is why I need my sunglasses. Three, don’t think you’re changing the subject that easily. What’s up?”

“It’s honestly nothing,” Dex says, exasperated, but he comes over to lay opposite on the bottom bunk next to Derek, on his back where Derek is still on his stomach. The bed, not meant to hold two 6’2 hockey players side by side, creaks alarmingly. A few beats of silence pass.

“Nursey?” Dex says, quietly.

“Hmm?”

“Why do you think everyone voted me captain?”

Derek frowns. “What’s this about? You’re a good choice.”

“Everyone’s been getting a lot of offers since we won championships,” Dex says. “And I never thought, you know, properly about going pro, not like Chowder has. I’ve always planned on entering the draft, it’s just, I never thought it would actually happen. But now, I don’t know. I thought maybe if I knew the reason why I was voted captain, it would help.”

This is easier when he doesn’t have to look at Dex’s face and can only look at his feet. Not his most attractive feature.

“Dude, you’ve grown up a lot,” Derek says. “You know this team. We know each other. And they noticed. They noticed when you talked to Hall and Murray about new plays and how you focused you are at practice. You only ever want to take breaks for everyone else’s sakes. You – ” Derek hesitates. “You give it everything you have. You look out for everyone. On the ice and off of it.”

There’s a moment of silence. “Thanks,” Dex says, his voice soft.

“Anytime,” Derek says.

“You know, I wouldn’t be a good captain without you and Chowder,” Dex says. “You guys, you made me better. You pushed me, encouraged me.”

Derek huffs. “Take some of the credit for yourself, yeah?”

“I _am_ , I’m just saying. I want to talk to the coaches. I think you and C should both share the A.”

This is a turn of events. “Me?” Derek says skeptically. “Nah, I don’t think so. Chowder should definitely – ”

“I think you both should,” Dex repeats. “I want you both leading the team with me. Frogs, right? You’re both just as important to the team.”

“Do you _know_ how many essays I’m going to have to turn in senior year?”

“You have two people to share the workload with, you big baby,” Dex teases. “I’m serious. Only if you’d want to – ”

“Okay, I’ll think about it,” Derek says, hiding a smile in the crook of his elbow. “Chowder will freak.”

“Nursey.”

“Yeah?”

Dex shifts position a bit, lets out a breath. “Why did _you_ vote for me as captain?”

“Because,” Derek says, and he doesn’t think he ever knew the real answer until this moment, “I trust you.”

Dex opens his mouth, like he’s about to say something, but Derek’s phone buzzes with a text from Shitty, and any words Dex was about to say are left unsaid.

────────────

Chowder calls it their “weird, antagonistic relationship wherein only they are allowed to insult each other” once, and tells him it’s ridiculous. Derek had shrugged instead of replying. He was dangerously close to saying, “I like our weird, antagonistic relationship, actually.”

Because he _does_. Isn’t that stupid.

He likes sparring back and forth, easily, over breakfast. He likes making fun of Dex and watching him try not to smile. He likes that their friendship is grounded in mutual respect, apologies and arguments together.

He’s not stupid enough to think that they would work, even if Dex had some break for reality and felt the same way.

Because they don’t work. They’re not supposed to.

They don’t work. Except they do, even at the start, on the ice if nowhere else.

He thinks about it sometimes. All the ways they don’t work, and why they do anyways.

────────────

**JULY 2017 (NOW)**

It’s not like everything is always perfect.

They get into an argument a few weeks after they move in together. It started either with Derek forgetting to clean up the water in the bathroom after he washed his face, or because Dex put Derek’s book away in the wrong place, and somehow escalated into yelling about all of the annoying things that they both do.

The thing is that Derek doesn’t think they’re actually all that upset. Not Dib Flip upset. Not moving-out upset. Not like that time they lost a game and took it out on each other until Ransom and Holster told them to get out of the Haus.

So he doesn’t know why Derek is standing in front of Dex by the bed, inches apart, yelling about it. They just are.

“And I’ve told you before not to leave your water bottle by my computer – ”

“Oh, come _on_ , like that’s some big deal, nothing’s ever happened – ”

“It’s not about what’s happened, it’s about what _could_ – ”

“What about how _you’re_ always – ”

“I swear, if you bring that up – ”

All at once Derek loses patience. “What are we even _arguing_ about, Dex?” he shouts. “What are we talking about? Sorry I forgot to clean up the water, I know it gets super wet in there. I’ll keep my water bottle away from your computer. I don’t know what we’re _doing_!”

“I don’t know either!” Dex says. “I’m sorry I screamed! And I don’t know why I screamed that either! I don’t know why we’re upset!”

In the resounding silence that follows, Derek thinks he’s almost figured it out – it’s on the tip of his tongue, the name of the tension between them, the thing that’s been dying to be let out since fucking 2014.

Dex stares at him, and Derek thinks he’s figured it out, too.

“Are we going to talk about it, then?” Derek says.

“Talk about what,” Dex says, controlled and careful, all of the things he never is.

Derek scoffs. “Two years and we’re still not going to talk about it? After what happened in June, we’re still not going to talk about it?”

“What do we even have to _say_?” Dex says loudly, looking up at the ceiling as if it holds some answers.

Derek looks at him. Dex looks back.

“Fuck it,” Derek says, and shoves him onto the bed, climbs onto his lap, and kisses him.

Dex doesn’t hesitate to kiss back. He gives back as good as he gets, like he always has; one hand reaching up to Derek’s waist and the other reaching up to fumble with the buttons on Derek’s shirt.

“You’re so fucking annoying,” Derek mumbles, pressing open-mouthed kisses to Dex’s collarbone.

“ _You’re_ annoying. Can’t even shut up now,” Dex says, breathless. “This is not the time to be talking and Jesus, Nurse, how many buttons does your shirt even have?”

”Normal amount of buttons,” Derek manages to get out. “Stupid.” 

“You’re infuriating,” Dex murmurs into his mouth. 

_Don’t think about it,_ Derek thinks, reaching down to unbutton Dex’s jeans, which is easy because he’s not thinking about much at all right now, just the smell of Dex’s shampoo and his mouth on Derek’s. He’s so busy not thinking about it that he doesn’t hear the door open until Chowder’s voice is saying cheerily, “Hey guys, we heard yelling, is everything oh my god.”

In very quick succession, Derek startles, lifts his head up, bangs it on the top bunk above, curses, falls sideways off the bed, and drags Dex with him down to the floor with a crash. Dex’s jeans are tangled around his ankles and they’re all jumbled up together and Derek’s shirt is all the way unbuttoned, and this is a disaster.

“Oh my God,” Chowder says again.

“You didn’t lock the fucking door?” Dex says, his voice muffled from where he’s landed on top of Derek’s chest.

“Why would I lock the door,” Derek hisses. He turns his head slightly, grimacing with pain, to see Chowder, who’s covering his eyes and grimacing himself.

“Argh,” says Chowder. “Argh. Oh my God.”

“This is not what it looks like?” Derek tries.

“It looks like you were both making out, and you’re very close to being naked,” Chowder says, hands still over his eyes.

“I,” Dex says, after a long pause. “Yeah.”

“Very glad for you both,” Chowder says, backing away slowly. “Hopefully all the sexual tension is resolved now. Please lock the door next time. I need to go wash my eyes out with bleach. Argh.”

The door gives a final _clink_ as he closes it behind them.

Dex rolls off of Derek and lands with a thud on the floor, rubbing his head and wincing.

“Well,” Derek says finally. He wishes he could cover his face with his hands like Chowder had.

“What are we doing, Nurse?” Dex says.

“I don’t know,” Derek admits, and he can’t handle the inevitable turn this conversation is going to take, so he sits up. He starts buttoning up his shirt, since the mood has officially been stabbed to death a million times.

“We’re not exactly Jack and Bitty,” Dex says, still on the floor. “Or Ransom and Holster.”

Derek’s stomach flips. He stands up, recoiling from pain. “Definitely not,” he says, trying to sound flippant.

“What are we, then? Nursey? Where are you going?”

“Ah,” Derek says, very casually, grabbing his phone, and his duffel bag from where it’s tossed beside the desk near the bottom bunk. “I’m going to Jerry’s to write.”

Dex sits up. “What?” he says incredulously.

“I feel the creative juices coming on,” Derek says enigmatically. “Right this moment. It’s dope. I need to be alone. And write.”

“Nursey, I think you have a concussion – where are you _going_? Nursey!”

“See you soon, going to write!” Derek calls out, before he shuts the door. He takes a moment to lean against it and groan, slapping his forehead.

He walks lighting-quick past everyone so that they don’t notice he’s gone until he’s already out the door. He walks to Jerry’s. He’s not going to write, because all that he’ll probably end up writing about now is Dex.

He slinks into a booth by himself, orders an extra-large strawberry milkshake, and sulks. He ignores all of Dex’s missed texts and calls, and texts Bitty to say he’s fine and he’ll be back soon. He digs through his duffel bag for his notebook, the one about Dex, the one Dex gave him for his birthday in sophomore year with a shrug and a _Just don’t throw it out, Nurse_. He traces the pattern of leaves on the cover. He’s starting to open it to make himself feel worse, when someone slides into the booth opposite him.

“Excuse me, I’d rather be alone right now,” Derek says, not looking up. God, he hopes it’s not some asshole. His hand creeps into his pocket for his phone just in case it is.

“Sorry bro, but unfortunately due to plot reasons I’m sort of duty-bound to sit here,” the guy in front of him says.

“What?” Derek looks up and squints. “Do I know you?”

“Johnson is the name I go by in this narrative,” explains the guy.

“Samwell’s old goalie?” Derek says slowly. “The weird one? The one who sent C that creepy letter?”

“It could be argued that I never really sent that letter because I don’t actually exist in the current plane of existence,” Johnson says. “But chyeah, basically.”

“Huh,” Derek says.

A half hour later, Derek has ordered another milkshake, too many burritos, and he’s in a deep conversation with Johnson about theoretical experiential crises.

“Dude, like, if this was Bitty’s story,” Derek says through a mouthful of burrito, “it’s not only his story, right?”

“Technically,” Johnson says. “His narrative is complete and his character development has reached its end and he’s found the love of his life, but we all still exist with lives to lead, if only in the depths of the minds of people who read the comic.”

Derek takes another sip of his milkshake doubtfully. “Right. The comic. In which we’re all minor characters.”

Johnson nods and toasts him with his coffee.

“Theoretically,” Derek says, “we’re still main parts of the story, though. Whether it’s real or not. Because Bitty brought us into it. We’re his family.”

“Interesting approach. You are speaking my language, bro,” Johnson says. “But you’ve got your own love of your life waiting for you, don’t you?”

Derek almost knocks over his milkshake. “What – you – That is _insanely_ creepy.”

“I try,” says Johnson with a shrug.

Derek’s phone buzzes in his pocket with a call from _c :)_. As soon as he presses answer and puts his phone to his ear, Chowder’s voice says loudly into his ear, “Nursey, what have you been _doing_ – ”

“Chill, I’m at Jerry’s, I’m with – ” Derek trails off. He looks up, then around at the other booths, out the window, but Johnson is gone. Possibly it was all a hallucination. “Never mind. I’m coming back, don’t worry.”

“Don’t _worry_?” Chowder sounds close to throttling him. “You can’t just leave like that on your own. Dex is hiding out in my room. What happened?”

Derek closes his eyes for a moment and sighs. “Nothing. Nothing happened. I’m sorry, C. I’ll be right there.”

He walks back to the Haus. Whiskey opens the door, thankfully, and he doesn’t ask any questions, though he does give Derek a look with raised eyebrows. Bitty, Jack, Ford, and Tango are eating dinner in the dining room; Ransom and Holster are watching a movie with Shitty and Lardo; Derek avoids them all and makes a sandwich in the kitchen, bringing it upstairs, determined to avoid Dex too. He texts Chowder to let him know he’s home and tells him he’d rather not see Dex right now. Chowder, love of Derek’s life that he is, says he’ll keep Dex busy, though Derek doesn’t doubt that he’s texted Lardo to see if Derek really is home.

He doesn’t want to go inside his room, but he does. The sheets of the bottom bunk are still rumpled so Derek doesn’t look in that direction. He takes off his shirt, the one Dex had taken off, and changes into a Samwell University sweatshirt that probably belongs to Shitty that Derek had stolen forever ago. (It’s not like Shitty ever wore it, or much of anything, anyway.) He sets his duffel bag back into its place near the desks, sits down on the floor, and eats his sandwich while scrolling through Instagram – and freezes.

He doesn’t remember picking up his notebook.

Derek swallows the last bite of his sandwich. He dumps everything out of his duffel bag, searching frantically for the book, but it’s not there. He’s standing up to go to Jerry’s to search for it before he realizes it. Before he remembers that everyone would kill him if he left by himself now. And he doesn’t want to ask anyone to come with him.

But Dex gave him that notebook. He spent months writing the poems in that notebook, they’re – they’re _personal_. Although it’s unlikely that anyone would guess who the poems were about. Except for Chowder. And Lardo. And Shitty. And Ransom. Possibly Bitty. But they aren’t going to go looking for it, so it doesn’t matter.

Derek runs a hand through his hair and tries to breathe. _I’ll get it tomorrow_ , he thinks. _Tomorrow._ The idea of leaving it there, if it even is there, sends a spike of anxiety into his stomach. The staff at Jerry’s loves him, though. They’d probably keep the book for him.

Maybe he was holding it, and he dropped it on the desk when he came in. He can’t remember.

Derek searches through the piles of notebooks and files on the desks in front of the bottom bunk, impatiently pushing aside the stupid chairs in the way. He spots a bound notebook covered by sheets of papers lying near Dex’s computer, and picks it up, relieved.

It’s not his notebook.

But he recognizes it immediately: there’s a lobster on the front. He got it for Dex, a joke gift for his birthday in sophomore year. He never thought Dex would actually _keep_ it.

“I am not opening that,” Derek says out loud. “Nope. That’s a complete violation of privacy. Extremely wrong. I wouldn’t want someone to do that to me.”

The notebook sits there on the desk.

“I’ll just check the first page,” Derek relents, and grabs it hungrily, flipping it open to the beginning. The first page is just a dedication he barely remembers writing: _for dexy, from ur favourite and best d-man. happy birthday stupid - nursey._

So he flips to the next two pages, which are filled with scribbled and messy writing on both sides. And he’s about to close it immediately, because Dex did write in it, mission accomplished, this is getting too creepy. Except then he sees his name, and his eyes scan the rest of the page, then the other page, and then he’s sitting back because he literally cannot stop reading.

PROS
    

\- It’s Nursey

\- My mom likes him

\- He’s definitely my type

\- He makes me laugh

\- He’s my best friend

\- He works really hard

\- He’s good at hockey

\- He’s really smart

\- We play well together

\- He’s hot, both objectively and non-objectively (is that how you spell objectively?)

\- If we got together it would be easier to make sure he doesn’t fall and trip to his death

\- He tries his hardest even though he’s got everyone convinced he doesn’t try at all

\- He knows me

\- I know him

\- He makes me smile

\- I like his smile

\- He smells nice

\- I like hanging out with him

\- It would be nice if we just hung out all the time

\- I could kiss him again

\- He’s pretty

\- I could poke his dimple

\- We have the same sense of humor

\- He’s a really good writer

\- I wouldn’t be who I am without him

\- My whole family likes him apparently

\- I could keep going (is that a con?? Embarrassing either way)

\- I like him

\- I just like him

\- Too much

CONS
    

\- It’s Nursey

\- He would never feel the same way so this is actually useless

\- He’s definitely out of my league

\- It could mess up the team

\- It could mess up our friendship

\- He’s annoying

\- He’s ridiculous

\- He sits in leaf piles

\- He makes me absolutely insane

\- He’s messy

\- Terrible singer?

\- Tries purposely to irritate me

\- One time he spilled orange juice on my computer

\- English major

\- He does not feel the same way

\- We argue too much

\- Sometimes I think he can’t possibly be real

\- I could ruin everything

\- I’ve already ruined everything

\- It’s Nursey

\- This is stupid

“Oh,” Derek says.

────────────

**SEPTEMBER 2014**

Will Poindexter is from Maine, plays the same position as Derek, is exactly Derek’s type, and absolutely hates Derek. Why he hates Derek, Derek can’t exactly figure out, but that’s about all Derek knows about him.

Not that it matters what Derek knows about him.

Their first meeting is very simple: Derek introduces himself with a graceful, extended hand, and a flash of a smile. Will Poindexter takes his hand. He does not return the smile. He spends the Taddy Tour alternately stealing away the attention of Derek’s favourite freshman here, Chris Chow from California, and making snide little comments.

Whatever. It’s chill. Derek is so not going to let it bother him, even if it bothers him so much when he gets home that his parents ask him what’s wrong.

Samwell has everything he’d wanted, plus his best friend from Andover, plus a surprise gay baker, plus Jack Zimmerman, plus Chris Chow from California. He doubts Will Poindexter is even going to go there. He doubts he’ll ever see Will Poindexter again.

(He does. They’re screaming at each other within minutes of their first practice.)

He doubts it will ever matter.

────────────

**JULY 2017 (NOW)**

Derek spends the rest of the night waiting for Dex to return to the room. He paces grooves into the floor walking back and forth. He waits for an hour, obsessively rereading through Dex’s list until he makes himself stop, though he can’t make himself stop holding on to it, some tangible proof of what Dex feels. Then he finds the courage to knock on Chowder’s door. Dex is not there.

“Nursey, it’s almost 3 A.M. Dex left hours ago, I thought he went to your room. Are you ready to tell me what’s going on?” Chowder says, opening the door in Sharks pajamas and his phone in his hand open to Farmer’s caller ID.

“Not yet,” Derek says. “Stay tuned. Either I’m going to show up weeping at your door or I’m going to be celebrating.”

Chowder sighs. “Why are you both like this?”

“I don’t know,” Derek says honestly. “Hey, why are you awake?”

Chowder shrugs. “ADHD, plus insomnia.”

“Ah, of course,” Derek says. “Hey, C. I love you.”

“Love you too,” Chowder says. “Now please sort this out.”

“That’s the plan.”

“Yeah, Cait, they’re _still_ going,” he hears Chowder say as he closes the door.

Then he goes back to his room to keep pacing.

He closes the door behind him and rests his head against it. He spends another two hours trying to sleep, but he tosses and turns and kicks off his blankets until he gives up. That’s when he looks out the window.

Dex is sitting with his knees drawn up in the Reading Room, lawn chair abandoned beside him, red hair shining bright in the early morning light. Derek feels his heartbeat quicken.

He must have entered the roof through Bitty’s room. Dramatic as usual. Derek’s mouth lifts up into a helpless smile. He crosses over to the window and clambers onto the roof carefully. He realizes he hasn’t exactly thought this through when Dex looks over and nearly falls off the roof in surprise.

“Oops!” Derek whispers, holding up his hands. “Sorry, it’s just me!”

“Nursey!” Dex hisses. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

“Sorry,” Derek says again, making his way over cautiously, still with Dex’s notebook in his hand. He settles down beside Dex, the lawn chair completing their triumvirate on Dex’s other side.

He looks above him instead of at Dex. The sky is painted in blues and pinks and oranges. He can hear faint chirps of birds and the soft murmurs of their teammates inside as they sleep or talk quietly on the phone.

“So,” Derek says finally. “Sorry I freaked out and ran away to Jerry’s.”

“Sorry I hid in Chowder’s room as soon as you left and then hid up on the roof instead of coming back to the room,” Dex returns.

“We’re certainly a pair,” Derek says, and Dex snorts.

They sit in silence for a few minutes, the late night, early morning breeze brushing over them and lifting curls of Derek’s hair into his face, their hands just barely touching side by side.

“I have something of yours,” Derek says, taking a breath.

Dex looks over at him. Derek wishes he hadn’t. It’s distracting.

“I totes did not mean to find it,” Derek says. “It was a complete accident and I def get it if you get mad.”

“Nursey, you know I can’t take you seriously when you say totes and def,” says Dex.

Derek holds up the book.

“Oh,” Dex says, voice very faint, and even in the dark Derek can see the red that blossoms across his cheeks. “You – read that?”

“Only some of it,” Derek rushes to tell him, which is true because he hadn’t turned the pages to see if there was anything else. “Like, the first few pages, and it was horrible of me, and a total violation of your privacy, and I definitely shouldn’t have.”

Dex exhales, looking away. “I have something of yours, too.”

This isn’t what Derek expected. “What?”

Dex holds up his book.

Derek stares at it. It’s definitely his, from this afternoon, the one he’d left in Jerry’s. “How did you – ” His voice comes out like a croak; Derek clears his throat. “How did you get that?”

“Some guy rang the doorbell when I left Chowder’s room and went downstairs to eat,” Dex says. “I opened the door and he told me this belonged in my room and that I should take it to further the plot? I took it and then he just disappeared. Kind of weird.”

“Johnson, that son of a bitch,” Derek mutters.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Derek coughs awkwardly. “So. Did you. Read what was in there?”

“Well, I had to see who it belonged to,” Dex says. “And then. I recognized your handwriting, and I read the first couple of pages. It was a really shitty thing to do. Sorry.”

Derek flashes back to all the poetry in there that references red hair, autumn, hockey, arguments, freckles, and a first kiss in a hockey rink. It’s his turn to almost fall off the roof.

Both of them set down their respective notebooks and sit in silence. Derek thinks about how easy it would be to throw their honest words into each other’s faces, vindictively, to make fun of each other without having any fun. But they aren’t. He thinks it means something. He thinks maybe they really have grown up.

“I did the exact same thing,” Derek says eventually. “So.”

“So,” Dex echoes. “This is embarrassing.”

“I didn’t think it was embarrassing,” Derek says. “I thought it was really – really sweet.”

“Oh,” Dex says again. “I – me too. You’re a really good writer, Nursey.”

If Derek could visibly blush, he’d be blushing. “Yeah, well.” He looks at Dex. “Are you actually smiling?” Derek shoves his shoulder lightly. “You dick.”

“Apparently you’re in love with me,” Dex says. “So yeah, I’m smiling.”

Derek holds his breath for a moment. He’s never actually said it, or heard someone say it, until this instant.

_In love._

“Oh, whatever,” he says. “You want me to bring up your list? You’re the one in love with me.”

It almost feels too bold to bring it up, like it can’t possibly be true, but Derek’s seen it in writing, and if he’s being honest, he’s known for some time.

Dex’s ears are red, but he says, “You don’t even know if that’s what that list is about.”

Derek laughs. “So you just wrote ‘if we were together’ and numerous points about my attractiveness level about our friendship? You want to poke my dimple, Poindexter?”

“You’re going to be bringing this up until we die, aren’t you,” Dex says, covering his face with his hands. “I’ll bring up the poetry too, you know.”

“Maybe it’s not about you.”

“So you’re telling me all that poetry is about someone else?”

“Yup,” Derek says, tamping down on the urge to grin.

“Oh, give it a rest, Nurse,” says Dex. “You kissed some other guy in Faber?”

“I’ve kissed so many guys in Faber, you’re not even near the top of the list.”

“I see,” Dex says. His hand edges closer to Derek’s.

“But,” Derek says magnanimously, “seeing as how you’re crazy obsessed with me, I suppose I’ll have you.”

“You’ll _have_ me?” Dex repeats, laughing. “Very generous of you.”

“I know,” Derek says.

“I guess I accept,” says Dex, and his hand slowly intertwines itself with Derek’s. Derek can barely breathe. “But only because you’re going mad with love for me.”

“Oh, shut up,” Derek says.

“Make me,” Dex says.

 _Oh, I can_ , Derek thinks, remembering a million arguments ending the same way, until one of them left the room or started screaming, with that knowledge between them that one of them could easily make the other stop talking because they’d done it once before. _I can now._

Derek brings his free hand up to rest in Dex’s hair, shifting close enough that he could count every freckle on Dex’s face if he wanted to. He says softly, “I do love nothing in the world so well as you: is that not strange?”

Dex’s mouth tilts up like he wants to smile. “What’s that?”

“Shakespeare,” Derek says. “You quoted him at me once.”

It takes Dex a minute to remember. “You mean – Nursey, that was not Shakespeare.”

Derek shrugs. “It was an adaptation of Shakespeare. Of a super sexist play, but Shakespeare nonetheless.”

“Okay, now you’re ruining it,” Dex says, laughing.

“I am not,” Derek says indignantly.

Dex looks serious for a moment, like when he’s practicing shooting drills with single-minded concentration. “Nursey. This isn’t – a joke to me. I’m – yesterday you poured orange juice in your cereal and then spilled it all over the counter, and I just wanted to kiss you.”

Derek laughs. “This isn’t a joke to me either,” he says. “Maybe you realized that.”

“Are we going to do this?” Dex says, tracing a pattern in the palm of Derek’s hands.

“Yeah,” Derek says. “I kind of love you, idiot.”

“I kind of love you back,” Dex says.

“Captain my captain, William my William,” Derek murmurs and pulls him in for a kiss, soft and gentle like they’ve never really let themselves be around each other. He lets go and Dex chases his mouth for another kiss.

Derek presses his forehead against Dex’s. He listens to the sound of his breathing against a backdrop of birdsong and solitary cars driving by outside campus and the sound of the wind. He’s thinking, _did_ _it take you long to find me? You’re here now, welcome home_.

Derek kisses him again, and above them, the sun comes up.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. in order, poems/songs referenced by nursey in his head are: mad girl’s love song by sylvia plath, summer, somewhere by danez smith, separation by w.s. merwin, i won't mind by zayn, visitor by brenda shaughnessy, and welcome home by warsan shire. if ur curious about which particular lines go with which poem, u can ask me in the comments or on tumblr @bisexualhaz, but this is already way too long lmao and i keep making it longer sorry.  
> 2\. context for that last much ado about nothing quote at the beginning if u've never read it is this, verbatim: beatrice and benedick deny their feelings for each other, but their respective besties (hero and claudio) bring out the big guns, aka poems and love letters written by beatrice and benedick about each other. benedick's like oh well, i GUESS the proof is here so i'll be with u but ONLY out of pity. beatrice is like whatever i accept but only because ppl have been telling me how sick you are without my love and how much u need me. benedick kisses her to shut her up. end scene.  
> 3\. in case it's not obvious, in those beginning quotes, nursey is cast in the role of elizabeth/jess/gilbert/benedick. dex is darcy/nick/anne/beatrice.  
> 4\. thank u so so much for reading! comments and kudos are lovely <3


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